Web Watch

Monday 27/1/2014 – www.netflix.maft.co
We saw something funny the other day: somebody had redone a load of corporate logos with more “honest” strap lines. Google had “Just try using another search engine.”Then we got to Netflix, who had been assigned the following: ”You’ll spend more time searching that actually watching.” We laughed heartily, not just because it’s funny, but because it’s also true.It’s like the early days of YouTube, where seeing one thing would draw you on to the next, your quest for something to watch never quite being fulfilled before it’s time for bed. There’s simply too much content, much of which you’re probably not familiar with.So anything that can help filter stuff out and make informed recommendations has got to be a good thing.At netflix.maft.co you get to see what the newest stuff is. There’s still more than a fair share of obscure stuff, but at least this helps you get to the latest releases more quickly than the inbuilt filter. But it also helps you find the stuff that’s being removed soon, the top-rated titles and allows you to filter all your results by genre.It’s the kind of search that should be built into the service, but isn’t.

Tuesday 21/1/14 – www.pitchup.com
One of the biggest and most compelling sporting spectacles is set to hit these shores again this year, when the Tour De France holds its opening stages in Yorkshire, Cambridge and London. Three stages in all, and if 2007 - the first time Le Tour came to the UK is anything to go by - it’s going to be huge.Thousands will get to see the full show, from the sponsorship trucks throwing their freebies into the crowds right through to the last few stragglers of the peloton and the support vehicles bringing up the rear.But this won’t be enough for the committed fans, many of whom will be jumping into campervans and cars and charging across Europe to secure top viewing spots for each and every stage.One of the biggest challenges is finding somewhere to stay. So it’s great to see this dedicated Tour De France section from pitchup.com that gives you details on the best places to camp throughout the three-week tour, complete with an interactive map. All in plenty of time to get your itinerary sorted.An essential bookmark if you’re planning to take in Le Tour this year.

Friday 17/1/14 – www.namemydaughter.comWe know it's Friday, and we hate to throw something your way that might add to your workload, but we have a challenge for you. Don't worry, it's not an onerous task. Far from it. This is perfect for a Friday, because it's creative, entertaining and really very silly. At namemydaughter.com we find a soon-to-be-father asking the internet for help with naming his unborn child. Well, who are we to disappoint? And I think you’ll have some great ideas too. It needs to be something noteworthy, memorable. Something contemporary, cool and characterful. At least we think that's what the aim is, but judging by the top name here at the moment, the internet is conspiring to give this child a moniker that will mean she'll have to spend the rest of her life spelling it out every time she's asked her name. Crazy stuff!

Thursday 16/1/14 – www.worldometers.info
Recently we talked about how the internet has made the world smaller. Okay, it’s just a figure of speech, it’s not actually getting smaller as worldometers.info illustrates in quite staggeringly simple ways.This is the dashboard of the world, and it looks at population, public expenditure, health and loads of other statistics which - when you take a glance at them - show that the world is, if anything, getting a bit more crowded.The global population has doubled since 1959. Yep, doubled.Makes you think, doesn’t it?

Wednesday 15/1/14 – www.hivehome.com
If you’re looking to save some money on your energy bills, it’s probably a bit too late to worry about switching now.Most of the providers have raised their prices and domestic bills are higher than ever.So the only way to spend less is to use less, and hivehome.com from British Gas is one thing worth considering.We told you about it last year, when it launched, but now, with the proper winter months facing us, it might be worth taking a closer look.For a couple of hundred quid they’ll install a wireless thermostat that you can control from your smartphone or tablet, putting you in complete control of your heating and hot water supplies.No more heating an empty home, and no more paying for energy you don’t need.

Monday 13/1/14 – www.houzz.com
Putting a roof over your own head is probably one of the most satisfying feelings you can have in life. It doesn’t matter whether you’re moving into your first student digs, your first rented flat or even the first property you buy, the pride you feel in having a home of your own is overwhelming.And it’s no wonder why people instantly want to set to work stamping them with their own style.DIY and home sites are ten a penny, but houzz.com, a US-based site that we’re enjoying at the moment has a fresh approach to offering advice on doing up your home.The emphasis here is on developing your own style, and they mix features and products curated by their own team with some of the most beautiful and inspiring photography we’ve seen.If you're trying to turn your pad into a palace this is one of the best sites we’ve seen for inspiration and straightforward product recommendations.Stylish stuff.

Tuesday 7/1/13 – www.bankfashion.co.uk
It’s Men’s Fashion Week in London. Cue lots of news reports featuring baggy silk pantaloons, off-the-shoulder Lycra leotards and see-through shirts with frilly cuffs. Just your average bloke’s wardrobe, really.But this is a good week to be thinking about what you wear. New year, new you and all that. Oh, and the freakish weather we’re all experiencing might have you thinking about buying a few more layers.If that’s the case, can we recommend bankfashion.co.uk? Their sale is on at the moment and that means you can get your hands on some top designer gear for less.You can stock up on brands like Converse, Superdry and Fenchurch, which are a little bit more like what normal people wear. I’ll be avoiding the silk pantaloons for a while yet I think!

Monday 6/1/13 – www.watchmojo.com
Online video was once a niche. Then it became a thriving world. These days, it’s a universe that’s expanding faster than even a supercomputer can calculate as millions of people upload their own content and share other people’s on a second by second basis.That's a lot of content. We need filters. You can see this happening in YouTube as the channels created by brands and individuals become ever more sophisticated. But we also see new sites springing up that try to bring a little order to the chaos.Watchmojo.com is just one of them, and it’s fast becoming one of our favourites.There’s a lot going on here, but it’s of a standard that will keep even the most casual viewers engaged and entertained.They cover all aspects of modern life without defaulting to celebrity shenanigans or cat videos.

Friday 3/1/14 – www.zombieevacuation.com
Another day into the new year and we’ve got another idea for a slightly different way to keep fit… and it’s one which, frankly, terrifies me!Research suggests that one way to push the body to its limits is to scare the living daylights out of it. Fear makes you go further and faster, and that’s why zombieevacuation.com is becoming the choice for people wanting a few thrills as they get fit.The idea is staggeringly simple: there’s been an apocalyptic event and the landscape you’re dropped into is infested with flesh-eating zombies. You have to get from one point to another across fields, through woods and tackling obstacles en route. And those zombies are on your tail every inch of the way.As a fitness craze, we think this is a brilliant idea that taps into a very modern cultural fascination with all things undead. It’ll be coming to a wooded area near you soon I’ve no doubt!

Friday 27/12/13 – www.whenyousurvive.com
Most of us are lucky we don’t have anything too taxing to deal with at this time of year. But there are those that aren’t so fortunate.Across the world millions of people are facing the festive season with an illness that is still considered a death sentence by most. Cancer. A hideous word that strikes fear into most people.But despite the war not being won, we are winning a few battles against this age-old killer.And whenyousurvive.com is the product of one of those victories. We think this is one of the most inspiring things we’ve seen all year.It’s 101 ideas for people to live a full, exciting and rewarding life, all written by a two-time cancer survivor. It’s sort of an “anti-bucket” list and is something that everybody should have a read through, whether they’re ill or not.If you’re in reflective mood today, this might give you a few ideas for some New Year’s resolutions, or maybe just a few ideas for getting out there and making a bit more of your time on this little green planet.

Monday 23/12/13 – www.scribd.com
Most people will agree that it’s probably too late for Christmas shopping now. Only your nearest and dearest are likely to actually get to see any gifts you might buy today, and then only if you take them with you when you go to get your fill of turkey and sprouts.But one option that remains is gift a subscription, and one that we really like is scribd.com.Here you can buy a gift card for anything up to a year’s worth of unlimited ebooks from this Netflix-for-bookworms style online library.So if you know somebody who’s unwrapping a shiny new ebook reader or tablet this Yuletide, you could look like a really thoughtful mate if you choose to go down this route.Rather than somebody who’s left it to the last minute again…

Wednesday 18/12/13 – www.assuredsale.com
They say that moving house is right up there with divorce and bereavement when it comes to stressful experiences. If you’ve ever bought or sold a property, you’ll probably agree. Dealing with solicitors, surveyors and estate agents can be stressful.The endless phone calls, the fees and no guarantee of a result at the end of it. People pulling out of property deals at the last minute happens and the very thought of it could keep you up at night.And that’s exactly why assuredsale.com exists. It came about after the founders and their friends got so fed up with being gazumped and gazundered that they decided to set up a place where people could buy and sell property with a little more confidence in the process.Here, both the vendor and the buyer has to put up a deposit when they agree a sale. If one of them walks away, they forfeit the cash

Monday 16/12/13 – www.philips-goldenears.com
They say that seeing is believing, but in this post-Photoshop age, is that even true any more? But most of will still believe what we hear and, with the notable exception of the musically ubiquitous Auto-tune, why shouldn’t we?But some people take the quality of what they hear for granted. They use the headphones that came with their MP3 player or smartphone; they don’t worry too much about how much they compress their music files; they don’t worry about where they put their hi-fi speakers. And that’s fine, for some poeple.But if you’re serious about your sounds, you’ll want to do a bit of research. And we think at philips-goldenears.com, even a hardened audiophile will learn a thing or too.This is an online training tool designed by the people at Phillips who look after the sound quality of all their products - the so called Golden Ears.

Tuesday 3/12/13 – www.smart21.co.uk
I know you’re busy with thinking about Christmas shopping. Making sure you’ve not forgotten about anyone. But let’s not forget about you!How about taking some time out to think about yourself and get involved with something a little out of the ordinary – a treasure hunt! This treasure hunt at smart21.co.uk has been set up to celebrate their 21Edition car, and a thing of compact beauty it is too.But the best thing is that you could get your hands on one (at least, for a bit) by following the fiendish clues that they’re spreading through the usual social channels, every day for three weeks.

Friday 29/11/13 – www.hackerone.com
If there’s one word that’s sure to strike fear into the hearts of the average internet user these days, it’s “hacker”.But hacking isn’t all bad. Much of it is undertaken simply to expose vulnerabilities in systems and that’s an invaluable part of the process when it comes to the unrelenting march of technology.So Facebook and Microsoft have got together to launch hackerone.com where they offer incentives for people with the skills to “break” various bits of software.The way they see it, you can turn hackers away from their sneaky activities by offering them cold hard cash.And it seems to be working. People who find weakness in the systems listed here can qualify for bounty, if they can demonstrate that what they’ve found makes the internet a better, safer place.

Wednesday 27/11/13 – www.bespokeoffers.co.uk
Credit cards are either the best way to get hold of the things you want, when you want, or a shortcut to financial ruin. It all depends on your experiences with them and how well you’ve got a grip on your personal finances.But one thing they certainly do have is purchasing power - not just for the individual customer - and for businesses, they carry some clout.So it’s no surprise to see that some of the deals on bespokeoffers.co.uk, a subsidiary of Barclaycard, are really quite attractive. This week, they’ve got £10 Amazon voucher for a fiver. That’s sound financial sense in anybody's language, and there are loads of other bargains to be had. You don’t need to be a cardholder to take part (you can sign in using Facebook) and there are mobile apps to get the best deals on the move too.A great way to save a a few pennies as the season of serious spending approaches.

Tuesday 26/11/13 – www.giveit100.com
What could you achieve in 100 days? Have a think about it. If you really put your mind to something, and practised every day for a 100 days, you’d probably get pretty good at it.And that’s exactly the idea behind giveit100.com. If you’re one of the 3million or so people who watched a viral video called Girl Learns to Dance in a Year then you’ve already met one of the founders of this site. Karen Cheng, a former designer at Microsoft, set up 100 as a way to encourage people to do the things they’ve always wanted to do, and share their progress.You sign in through Twitter or Facebook and then start your video diary. You don’t have to do 100 consecutive days, so whatever you’re learning hopefully won’t become an onerous task, but judging by some of the stories already on here, if you stick with it, the results can be amazing.

Monday 25/11/13 – www.impossible.com
Is there room for another social network? It’s already a very crowded space, isn’t it? As a user, do you have just one that you spend all your time in, or do you flick from one to another to get the best of all worlds? That wouldn’t be all that surprising, what with Facebook’s obsession with pictures of cats and people’s dinners. Or Twitter’s angry mob shouting at anybody brave enough to put their head above the virtual parapet.What if there was one that was just full of nice things? OK. it wouldn’t be everybody’s cup of tea, but it would be a nice place to visit once in a while wouldn’t it?We’re wondering if impossible.com could be just that place. This is a social network where people offer to do things for other people, for free. It’s the brainchild of Lily Cole, and her introductory video tells you what her motivation was for doing it.But we reckon this is worth adding to the list of places you drop into every now and again.You just might see somebody you can help. And there are not many better feelings than that, are there?

Friday 22/11/13 – www.yimby.com
You would think that JustGiving had just about cornered the online fundraising market, wouldn’t you? Yes, there are others, but a bit like Google, its name has become almost synonymous with the idea of a charity webpage.But clearly it thought it was missing something and in yimby.com, we see the response.This is a very simple idea that puts together all the best bits of raising cash online, with the most useful bits of social media. By that, we mean the ability to get your message to a large number and wide range of people quickly. Very quickly.Here, you can set up a project for your chosen good cause and then you get to work crowdsourcing your support. The more people you get your message to, the more pledges you get, and if you hit your target within a month, you get the cash for your chosen charity.It’s a great new way for organisations big and small to raise much-needed funds.

Wednesday 20/11/13 – www.1facewatch.com
There are few accessories that say more about you than your wristwatch. It’s a very personal thing and reflects everything about your taste, your style and even your bank balance.If you wear a Rolex, people will have an opinion. If you wear a Timex, they will have another. It might not be fair, but it’s inescapable.So why not turn things on their head a bit and wear a watch that really says something. And that something is “I bought this to help other people”.At 1facewatch.com you can buy any of eight different colours of a very stylish digital watch, and every time you do, a good cause gets a few quid.Each colour represents a different good cause, and the more you buy the more goes to charity. This is a US-based site, but they will ship worldwide. And at just $40 a pop, buying more than one might be a real option for some people.

Thursday 7/11/13 – www.just-eat.co.uk
This is an oldie, but a goodie, and well worth a mention now that the nights are drawing in and the temptation to not leave the house too much becomes ever more difficult to resist.At just-eat.co.uk, you can pick from over 18,000 takeaway restaurants and get your favourite fast food sorted without leaving your armchair.Tell it where you are, decide what you’re in the mood for, be it Chinese, Thai, Indian or good old fish and chips, and then browse through the online menu of wherever tickles your fancy. The best bit is that you can pay by card in advance, so no more fumbling for loose change when the doorbell goes.Getting decent takeaway food has never been massively difficult, but this makes it child’s play, especially with the free app.

Wednesday 6/11/13 – www.kopi.co.uk
More and more people are taking the art of making good coffee home with them rather than spending their hard earned cash in the high street coffee shops.But where do you go to get your raw materials? Well, kopi.co.uk is a good option, particularly if you fancy something a little bit different. Sign up here and every month they’ll send you a batch of the finest coffee – a different one each month.It’s a great way to discover new blends and roasts and every cupful is a fresh as it can be because they roast to order.A coffee connoisseur's dream and an ideal present for the bean lover in your life.

Tuesday 5/11/13 – www.celebtoob.com
If you’re the sort of person who loves to pour over the pages of the celebrity magazines, then you’re going to love our site today. Have a look at celebtoob.com and spend some time finding out about the things that really matter… like the celebrities who are shorter than you’d imagine and how much some of Tinseltown’s great and good really weigh! It’s in-depth journalism at its best. It’s also strangely compelling.

Monday 4/11/13 – www.moneymagpie.com
It makes the world go round. It is the root of all evil. It is, apparently, too tight to mention.Money! Regardless of how you think the world should run, we’re all wedded to it whether we like it or not, and these days it doesn't seem to go as far as it used to.With the cost of just about everything on the rise and wages actually going down in real terms, it’s no wonder we’re all trying to save a few pennies here and there.About the only things that are booming are sites like moneymagpie.com. We’ve featured similar before, but this is a new one on us and well worth a look if you’re serious about spending less of your hard earned cash.With money saving tips, great offers and deals and even straightforward information if things have got out of hand and you’re struggling with debt.This is no-nonsense, straight-talking advice on getting the most out of your money.

Tuesday 15/10/13 – www.thecardboardman.co.uk
When it comes to thinking outside the box, you really have to hand it to thecardboardman.co.uk.This is one of those ideas that has you kicking yourself that you didn't think of it: cardboard furniture. That might sound daft, but hear us out. It was the brainchild of Gareth Swarte, who realised that many people, students in particular, move around quite a bit, so don't necessarily want to lug a van load of furniture around every time they up sticks.This innovative range of simple yet effective furniture is all designed to be low cost, reusable and just about as portable as it's possible to get. The cardboard itself is all from sustainable sources and is, of course, recyclable.A great idea, brilliantly brought to market.

Monday 14/10/13 - www.todayilearned.co.uk
If you want to know about the lake that turns animals to stone or how much energy your body uses to power your brain, have a look at our website of the day. It’s todayilearned.co.uk. If you love shows like QI or just have a thirst for knowledge, this is the blog for you. It’s updated regularly so you’ll never be short of a conversation topic for the pub again!

Wednesday 9/10/13 – www.bacontoday.com
Mmmm, bacon. No not him. Not the one on the telly selling 4G at the moment.We mean actual bacon. It’s been the undoing of many a vegetarian, apparently. That smell is one of the greatest experiences in existence. Just a whiff of the stuff will get you wanting some. Then the thought of anything else is simply a waste of everybody’s time, because all you’ll want is bacon.Grilled, fried, roasted, doesn’t matter. As a sandwich, as a topping, as a snack on its own. You just gotta have it.But there is so much more to the humble rasher than just heating it and eating it, as bacontoday.com amply shows. If it can be done with bacon, it will be done here and if this site doesn’t leave you salivating and heading for the nearest greasy spoon, you’re simply not human.

Tuesday 8/10/13 – www.bleepbleeps.com
Being a parent is one of the toughest jobs in the world. Fact.You will be bombarded with well-meaning advice, regardless of whether or not you asked for it, and expected to follow every single word and report back. You will see more “targeted” advertising and media coverage than at any other time in your life – much of it completely contradictory. You will be exhausted. You will be demoralised. You will, for all intents and purposes, be on your own.And all that's I before your child gets a few bugs and feel a bit unwell. Then it all gets a bit surreal.Which is why we think bleepbleeps.com is one of the most exciting developments in parenting kit for ages.This is a whole new approach to looking after little people, with gadgets that don’t look like they came straight from the doctor’s surgery, and functionality that will make past parents weep with envy. Take Tony Tempa, their version of the humble ear thermometer. Not only does it look amazing, but also it works with a free app to tell you whether the temperature reading is something you should really worry about. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? But nobody's done it before. At least not like this.We love this stuff and are looking forward to seeing the full range soon.

Wednesday 2/10/13 – www.postgraduatesearch.com
When you're young, there can be a lot of emphasis put on getting a degree. Whether it's your parents or your teachers, there's likely to be a lot of support, opinion and advice thrown your way, whether you want it or not!But if you're coming out the other side? For postgraduates looking to carry on their studies, the stakes are arguably higher, with more pressure to make the right decisions, more money to fork out on fees and more support, opinion and advice needed.For help finding that advice, you could do worse than postgraduatesearch.com. This recently revamped site will help you find the right courses and the right places to do them.And with real-world advice from current and past students, you'll get a better idea of what you're committing to.A great resource if you're furthering your education.

Tuesday 1/10/13 – www.hirejungle.co.uk
It’s an age old dilemma when it comes to home improvements: do it yourself, or get someone in. If you’re facing that issue have a look at hirejungle.co.ukThis London-based start-up is a great new way to find products and services, advertised by the people providing them. Whether it's a skilled tradesman or just the right kit to do the job, with hundreds of thousands of businesses already signed up, you're likely to find what you need here.And it's not just home stuff you'll find here either. There are listings for all kinds of things, from car hire to fashion and from financial services to music lessons.This is a great new way to find the people and products you need to get any job done.

Monday 30/9/13 – www.theliterarygiftcompany.com
It’s usually good news when you ask somebody what they want for their birthday and they answer: “Just buy me a book.”It opens up an almost limitless set of options for what you can buy them, and if they’re an avid reader, it probably won’t really matter too much what you get them. They’ll be happy with the gesture.But what if you fancy being a bit different? What if you fancy taking them by surprise a little? If that sounds like you, then let us introduce to theliterarygiftcompany.comHere you’ll find a massive range of gifts to make any bookworm smile, from their cheeky grammar mugs to their clothes, posters, journals, in fact anything to do with the glories of the written word.If you know somebody who’s passionate about consuming the printed English language, you could do much worse than buy them something from here.

Friday 27/9/13 – www.freshonthenet.co.uk
At freshonthenet.co.uk, you see what happens when years of musical experience are brought together with the easy accessibility of the web.You can hear new tracks, see the latest new videos and catch up with the industry buzz with the various blogs that are housed here.Our favourite bit is the mixtapes, where you can get access to a dizzying array of new sounds in easily digestible chunks.Music to our ears, and it could be for yours too.

Thursday 26/9/13 – www.lostmyname.com
The school year is in full swing by now, and for parents of younger children, it’s probably been a bit of shock to everybody’s system.Their angelic little offspring will be coming home exhausted, full of new and bewildering bad habits and brimming with questions sparked by a full day of learning.If they’re learning to read and write, it’s a good idea to stock up on some activities that will help them in a way that doesn't necessarily feel like homework.One of the best things we’ve seen recently is lostmy.name. Here you can buy books that will make those first teetering steps towards literacy a magical experience for both you and the child.These books are beautifully written and illustrated, and best of all they’re bespoke. You tell them the name of the child it’s for and they weave that name into the story, so young readers will be drawn into the whimsical tale in search of the letters that spell out their own names.It’s a wonderfully simple, yet hugely effective idea.

Wednesday 25/9/13 – www.10minuteswith.com
Careers advice. For those of us of a certain age, that meant an occasional meeting with a clearly bored civil servant who took one look at what had been scrawled across our school file when we were six years old and then offered a few words of advice on which subjects to take to get us there.Thankfully, things have moved on a fair bit, and in this media-rich age, 10minuteswith.com stands out as a brilliant way for students and graduates to connect with the real world of work.Here you can see interviews with some of the top executives in all kinds of industries, and they share their experiences and give solid advice on what to expect if you choose to enter the field they work in.

Tuesday 24/9/13 – www.lovefoodgivefood.org
There are few easier ways to support a good cause than by doing it while you’re doing something you’d ordinarily be doing anyway.Like eating. It’s something many of us are fortunate enough to take for granted, but for many millions of people across the globe, that’s not the case.At lovefoodgivefood.org they’re doing something about it and there are loads of ways you can help them.You can choose to eat in restaurants that support them, attend special foodie events hosted by top chefs, or maybe use some of the recipes here to throw your own dinner party. But the real draw for us is the Supperheroes events, which are running until the end of November.These are pop-up dining events and supper clubs that anybody can get involved in, and make for a brilliant night out while doing something for people who desperately need help.

Monday 23/9/13 – www.blrrr.com
So, if you’ve taken the plunge and updated to iOS7, or even better, got your hands on a shiny new iPhone 5 over the weekend, you‘ve hopefully had a bit of time to play with all the new features and get used to how it looks.It’s different, isn’t it? And there are some neat features, like the parallax view on wallpapers – as you move your iPhone or iPad around, the wallpaper does this kind of 3D shimmy in the background.It’s not for everybody (tales of it inducing motion sickness may be exaggerated, but it's certainly a striking feature) but if you’re looking for some new wallpapers to really show off the effect, you can find a shedload of them at blrrr.com.All these have been made using the Blrrr app, so even if you don’t want any of these, it’s easy enough to make your own.But for freebies, these look just the job in my humble opinion.

Thursday 19/9/13 – www.loveflutter.com
There’s something refreshingly honest about loveflutter.com. It’s a new online dating site that’s grabbing a fair few column inches with its unique selling point: it only wants interesting people.And not just ordinary interesting, like “I read an interesting piece in the Sunday paper about kite surfing across the Gobi desert...” No. They want the “I actually went kite surfing across the Gobi desert...” type of people.Here, you have to fill out a quick questionnaire, and they’ll rate your quirkiness. Score highly enough and you’ll be let in. This kind of pre-screening, might seem elitist, but they want to make sure that the people they’re matching up have something interesting to say when they meet. It’s logical, really.And if you don’t pass muster, it’s probably time to think about taking up some new pastimes.

Wednesday 18/9/13 – www.moveyourmoney.org.uk
It’s quite easy to bash the banks. Let’s face it, everything that’s wrong in the world is the fault of the banks, isn’t it?Well, that’s not all strictly true. Many people have a great experience with their banksThere are some good banks out there, and particularly now that UK customers can switch account providers much more easily, it might be time to consider a move.At moveyourmoney.org.uk you can find out what the big names have been up to with your cash and also consider who might be more deserving of your custom.This is quite a robust approach, and they don’t pull any punches. But maybe that’s what consumers need now – straightforward, no-nonsense, factual advice to help them make better decisions.

Tuesday 17/9/13 – www.supajam.com
Music sites are ten a penny. And they’re a bit like music festivals really. There are the big, glossy, corporate ones and there are the slightly more down-to-earth, unspoilt ones. The ones that still connect with real music fans and offer exposure to new artists and new venues.Supajam.com is one such site, and it’s fast carving out a nice little reputation for itself.Full of unpretentious music news, latest releases, MP3 downloads and free video content, it’s got its finger firmly on the music pulse.It’s also a great place to come for the various blogs it hosts, with tastes and opinions covering the full spectrum of modern musical output. These are written by real music fans and tell it like it is. That’s something that the music media used to pride itself on, but in recent years has become less and less common.

Monday 16/9/13 – www.zomato.com
When you’re choosing somewhere to go for a nice meal, there are many things that will affect your decision making process.The type of food, the price, the location - all these are factored in. But the one that will end up sealing the deal in most cases is a recommendation.At zomato.com you can follow the recommendations of millions of fellow foodies who have listed their favourite haunts, be they restaurants, cafes, delis or even just good places to get a drink.There are nearly 120,000 listings in seven countries and that’s a database that’s growing all the time. They have apps to make finding the perfect meal on the move really easy too.View the menus, see photos of the venues and download maps to get you their on time too.A new essential for anybody serious about good food.

Thursday 12/9/13 – www.moo.com
First impressions count. That might sound like a cliché, but there's no getting away from it. As soon as you walk through the door people will judge you based on your appearance, how you behave and what you say.You might think it doesn't matter, but if you're trying to make a good first impression, a business card is just as important as the way you dress.You can print your own at any of countless online places, but the results can be a bit hit and miss.Not so with moo.com. Their cards are a cut above, with simple, elegant styling that’s bang up to date, and those nice little design flourishes that make the end product stand out.

Tuesday 10/9/13 – www.livedrive.com
Here’s a question you probably don’t know the answer to: when was the last time you did a backup of your computer?It’s easy to forget, even with the plethora of solutions available no matter you are: at home at work or in the cloud. Solutions like livedrive.com has to be one of the simplest we’ve come across, it has three options: Backup, Briefcase or Pro, catering for individuals. They also have a Business option for larger teams, and the costs for all of them are far from prohibitive.What we really like though is just how easy it is to use and its more than generous limits. Download the free trial to see what we mean, and you’ll never have to worry about losing any of your data again.

Monday 9/9/13 - www.dailytech.com
With the next Apple iPhone event happening tomorrow, there’s loads of speculation about the latest incarnation of the smart phone. Of course, there’s more to technology than just Apple, so for your daily fix of tech news check out dailytech.comIt’s a blog style site that combines news with opinion and is worth checking out of you want to keep your finger on the gadgetry pulse.

Friday 6/9/13 – www.staggeringbeauty.com
So, for today's trip into cyberspace, we're giving you staggeringbeauty.com.A completely, totally, utterly pointless, ermmm… thing, that nevertheless will keep you entertained for a while as Friday grinds interminably towards the weekend.It’s a sort of snake thing that you sort of wiggle about a bit with your mouse and then it sort of does a load of wriggling jazzy, flashy, lighty things.Like we said: totally pointless.But after the week we've had, we're going to stare at it a bit more.It’s strangely soothing.

Thursday 5/9/13 – www. Cuckooland.com
Today in the office, the topic of Christmas shopping came up. Yes, we know it's only September but there are some people who like to get it all out of the way long before even the first baubles hit the supermarkets. Then there are those if us who think that’s just taking it a *bit* too far!But, if you’re in the first camp, or if you just like buying nice things, then you might be on the lookout for a few new sites where you can get some presents that are just a little bit different. Cuckooland.com is one to add to your list.It's an online retailer that’s already been nominated for awards and it’s easy to see why, with its eclectic range of stylish and quirky items. Everything here is beautifully designed and keenly priced, and there will be something for everybody. Bookmark it today for December!

Wednesday 4/9/13 – www.terrileahy.co.uk
Badgers, cats and dog – just some of the many brilliant creations you can find at terrileahy.co.uk, the website of one of London’s best and brightest young textile designer-makers.We’re always on the lookout for gifts with a difference and Terri’s irreverent range of toys, characters and decorative bits and bobs really appealed to us. They’re all handmade in her studio in Deptford, southeast London, and her new baby range is something that we reckon could really make her name.

Tuesday 3/9/13 – www.tablepouncer.com
Food. A necessity, a pleasure, an art form. It’s also a pain if you can’t get to eat what you want, when you want.We all like to treat ourselves and the people we care about by taking them to a nice restaurant once in a while. But these days, if you haven’t booked weeks, or even months in advance, you’re likely to go hungry, or go to your local takeaway. Spontaneity isn't really on the menu for many people, or at least it didn’t used to be.Tablepouncer.com is a great idea and, although it covers only a handful of UK cities at the moment, we reckon it could be the shape of things to come when it comes to finding somewhere to eat.Choose your city, your date and how many people are eating and it will show you where you can still get a table. And a bit like some of the last-minute holiday and hotel deals you can find online, it will often give you a massive discount on the meal too.

Monday 2/9/13 – www.brainboxcandy.com
The humble greetings card has come a long way from those simple, tasteful designs of yesteryear. These days they are works of art and future design classics; they carry profound messages that will adorn fridges for years to come; they come as 3D structures, musical and virtual entities. You can even create your own with just a few clicks of a mouse. And above all it’s now a big business. A very big business.So standing out in the crowd takes some doing. But we reckon brainboxcandy.com manages to do just that.Here you’ll find cards at the more irreverent end of the greetings spectrum, with cheeky designs and risqué writing.You can get cards, gifts and wrap - everything you need to show your friends and family that you really do care. You just have a "refreshingly different" way of showing it.

Friday 30/8/13 – www.uk.theodora.org
Friday’s here! Traditionally, that means most of us get to have a bit of a laugh. The atmosphere in offices, schools and colleges tends to be a little more relaxed and we can all start to let our hair down a little bit as the weekend approaches.But it’s not the same for everybody, unfortunately. If you’re in hospital, it’s generally no laughing matter. Especially if you’re young.Kids don’t always understand what's going on and anybody in a white coat who insists on taking readings and writing notes all the time can be a bit intimidating. So that’s why the people at uk.theodora.org send in the Giggle Doctors.This charity gets’ specially trained entertainers to dress up and visit sick children while they’re in hospital. Not only does this help pass the time it also helps youngsters to overcome their very understandable wariness of anybody in a uniform.A great charity.

Thursday 29/8/13 – www.joinsam.com
Online shopping has become the norm for many people. This is generally good news for consumers, though possibly not so good for your local high street. But for most, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks and buying everything you need without leaving the house doesn't feel like an unusual thing to do any more.Cashback sites have sprung up in recent years as part of this new competitive landscape, as retailers offer ever more generous incentives to get your online attention, and joinsam.com is a new one that we really like.It pitches itself as a great way to save for children, and also a good way to start introducing them to the world of online commerce.It’s a well-presented and simple idea and with it's range of brands and incentives, it's one that’s likely to appeal to lots of people, not just parents.

Wednesday 28/8/13 – www.wayn.com
I know most people have had their main summer holiday by now, but if you still have itchy feet, how about browsing our website of the day.Head to wayn.com and it soon becomes obvious that if you’re trying to find out a bit about a new place, the best people to ask are the locals. If you’re on your grand voyage on your own and want to meet fellow travellers, here you can make a few connections.

Tuesday 27/8/13 – www.builtbykids.com
If you’ve got youngsters at home, our site today could be just what you’re looking for if your house echoes to the cries of “I’m bored!”. And, with most people trying to tighten their belts a little bit at the moment, the sheer cost of everything can leave you feeling stumped for ways to fill everyone’s timeBut, it doesn’t have to be that way.At builtbykids.com you’ll find countless do-it-yourself projects that you can build either with or without your little ‘uns.There are some brilliant things to make here and if you follow the instructions carefully, you can be sure of some smiling faces too.One of them might even be your own.

Monday 26/8/13 – www.eatthismuch.com
Monday’s a good day to talk about dieting. How many of us say to ourselves “I’ll start again on Monday” as yet another weekend turns into a calorie-laden festival of indulgence?It’s not easy to maintain a healthy weight, especially as you get a bit older, but these days there’s a lot of help to be found online.But eatthismuch.com is easily one of the best we’ve seen. It’s a simple meal planner that takes your chosen calorie limit and turns it into set meals that you can prepare yourself.The flexibility within this set-up is the real selling point. You can choose how many meals you want and if you don’t like the results you can discard them and get a load more suggestions. Click through to the ones you like for the full recipes.Worth a try as part of your sensible eating plan I think.

Thursday 22/8/13 – www. robertscycles.com,
Yesterday’s website of the day featured carbon bikes, but it caused a bit of a stir among cycling types. Mostly around the ‘what’s so good about carbon?’ line.The selling points of carbon frames in bikes are well documented - it’s light, it’s stiff and it’s very expensive (so it’s got to be good, right?). But It’s also fragile. Admittedly, not as much as it used to be, but you still can’t beat a steel tube construction when it comes to a solid, dependable ride. At least that was the argument presented by the carbon nay-sayers.And judging by robertscycles.com, just one of the sites thrown our way to prove the point, we’re starting to come round to that way of thinking. These are seriously special cycles, and they're all steel.They’re light, hand-built and absolutely beautiful. And if all that new-fangled composite leaves you a little unconvinced, this is traditional construction brought bang up to date.

Wednesday 21/8/13 – www.liosbikes.com
At liosbikes.com you’re going to see some of the most extraordinary road and triathlon bikes imaginable.They are things of rare and exquisite beauty, and they are all custom-built, all carbon and seriously sexy.These are not just personalised, not just customised to your taste, but actually built for you, and only you. Think of it like a Savile Row suit that you ride. Very, very fast.The story behind the company is also an extraordinary one. The founder, Steve McCulley, spent most of his working life in the Royal Marines, until an improvised explosive device brought his military career, and his competitive cycling ambitions, to an abrupt and painful end.But Steve didn’t give up. In between surgery and medical rehabilitation, and with support from the Royal Marines and organisations like Help for Heroesand Heropreneurs, he founded LIOS Bikes.And we’ve never seen anything quite like them.

Monday 19/8/13 – www.haveyouseen.com
Take a little bit of Amazon, throw in a bit of Facebook and round it off with a liberal sprinkling of Quidco and you have the recipe to make finding and sharing stuff you like a bit more rewarding… and its online at haveyouseen.com,This is something you don’t really need to change your habits for either. Simply share the things you take a fancy to while you’re shopping and you make money. Your mates get good deals on what you’re sharing and you all get to shop at some of the biggest names.

Friday 16/8/13 – www. ikeahackers.net
Most people will have something from Ikea in their house somewhere. It could be a whole room full of stuff, or just the odd bookshelf. But there will come a time when you think about changing things around a bit, and it’s quite understandable to shove all the old stuff in a shed, send it to a charity shop, or even chuck it in a skip. But if you’re feeling handy this weekend, look at ikeahackers.net Here you’ll see loads of ideas for taking bog-standard bits of flatpack furniture and putting them to new and exciting uses.This is perfect for anybody looking to update their homes without shelling out a load of cash and we think this could keep a few people busy this weekend.

Thursday 15/8/13 – www.ssega.com
Nostalgia is trendy. All things that were once considered cool and have been superseded time and time again, are now often, ironically, cool again.Take ssega.com. Here you’ll find all the old favourite Sega Mega Drive games to play, in full, online and for free.It’s not that long ago when a collection like this would have cost you the earth.Now you can simply choose your title and wait a few seconds to revel in the old-school wonders of early-Nineties gaming.Titles such as Arnold Palmer Golf, Mortal Kombat and Super Airwolf are bringing classic gameplay to a new generation, and a few tears of nostalgia to our eyes.The only grumble we have is that these are Flash-based games. It would have amused us no end to see all the cool kids playing these games on their iPads.

Wednesday 14/8/13 – www.twinkind.com
This site is based in Hamburg, but the idea of creating your very own 3D mini figurine might be just enough motivation to get you on a plane.Using the very latest in 3D scanning, 3D printing and digital imaging techniques ,twinkind.com can produce a small-scale, three-dimensional facsimile of you or whoever you can get to stand still for long enough, for a lot less than you might think.These aren’t going to be everybody’s idea of a perfect gift, or nice addition to the mantelpiece, but we can’t think of a more accessible way to see some of the latest technology in action.The other other reason we like this site is the way it’s built. It’s very “now” with it’s tablet-like navigation and clean layout. Lots of others are trying to do this, but this one nails it.

Tuesday 13/8/13 – www. en.ipanda.com/live
Despite the fact that the biggest cultural event in Europe is taking place at the moment, the biggest news to be coming out of Edinburgh is that Tian Tian, the giant panda, may or may not be pregnant.That’s right - may or may not. They don't know for sure.But this does show just how fascinating and popular any stories about pandas prove to be. They’re enigmatic creatures, and always grab the headlines.And if the black and white, bamboo-munching cuties are your thing, then you might like to keep an eye on en.ipanda.com/live, a Chinese website that does nothing but show live streams of pandas.See them eat! See them sleep! See them eat some more! See them loll about a bit! Occasionally see them scratch themselves!You get the picture...

Monday 15/8/13 – www. pitchup.com
Have you ever been camping? If you’re new to the experience, or an old hand, have a look at pitchup.com .With hundreds of sites all over the UK, France and Ireland to choose from, this makes finding your perfect pitch a doddle.Search by date, by location, or by the type of accommodation you’re looking for if you don't have a tent of your own, and you can go as basic or as “glamp” as you like.All the listed campsites carry reviews from people who’ve stayed there, so you know what you’re getting into before you book, which you can do online here too.

Friday 9/8/13 – www. emphas.is
Nowadays most of us carry a camera of one sort or another with us wherever we go.And we're not shy when it comes to sharing what we photograph either.But if you’ve moved beyond sharing your snaps through Facebook and Instagram, where can you show off your pictures in a more meaningful, and possibly even profitable way?emphas.is is an outlet for dedicated snappers who are keen to tell and sell their pictorial stories, but don't have the backing of a magazine or publishing operation.If you’re more of a consumer, then here you can see the world in all its high-definition technicolour glory and also give your support to the people behind the cameras as they display their wares.

Thursday 8/8/13 – www.stopphubbing.com
We all do it and have it done to us. In a social situation, we pull out the smartphone and have a quick gander at Facebook, Twitter or whatever else it is that we think we absolutely have to check right at that instant.Perhaps it’s that feeling that we’re out of the loop. There’s even a name for it now, with a catchy acronym: FOMO. Fear of missing out.Or maybe we’re just bored of the company, but too polite to just get up and go somewhere else.Either way, it’s pretty rude. To snub your friends to spend a bit more quality time with your phone is a thoroughly modern problem, but it’s one that some people are determined to stamp out.At stopphubbing.com you’ll find out all about it and what you can do to prevent it. Oh, and you can name and shame your worst-offending chums too.We love this site. It’s lighthearted but makes a valid point about modern manners.

Tuesday 6/8/13 – www. homeaway.co.uk
If, like me, you’ve not had a summer holiday yet, how about doing something about that today? And with your hard-earned cash not going as far as it used to at the moment maybe you should do what millions of others are doing and go self-catering.If that sounds like a good idea, take a look at , where you’ll find a brilliant range of holiday accommodation available all over the world and with flexible dates.It’s a simple, quick way to find a great place to stay, and we reckon it’s the perfect antidote if you’re feeling a bit of the Tuesday blues.

Monday 5/8/13 – www.edfringe.com
It’s the world’s biggest and best Arts festival and it’s on our doorstep. Sometimes too much choice can be a bad thing though and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by everything that’s happening in the Capital.From comedy to circus, musicals to mime, you’ll find it all going on in Edinburgh in August.Here at Kingdom FM our daily guides will help you make the most of your visit to The Capital, but you can also check out the official Festival website. It’s online at edfringe.com

Wednesday 31/7/13 – www.gothinkbig.co.uk
There’s a lot of talk about getting people on to the property ladder, with new government-backed schemes designed to help young people buy their own first homes.All well and good, assuming those young people have jobs. And that’s the rub of the matter.Finding any kind of paid work is hard for many, and starting a meaningful career, with some security or long-term prospects is almost a fanciful notion.But it can be done, and at gothinkbig.co.uk, they’re demystifying the jobs market and giving solid advice to young people just starting out in professional life.There are features written by those who’ve been there and done that, as well as listings of current opportunities.

Tuesday 30/7/13 – www.tigertime.info
Here’s a number for you: 3,200. That’s how many tigers there are left in the wild. In total...That’s astonishing, isn’t it? One of the most mythical and beautiful creatures is literally on the edge of existence. And it’s all our fault.We’ve hunted them, persecuted them, taken away their habitats and taken away their food supplies. We have pushed them to the brink of extinction and somehow this isn’t international news.But there are quite a few people who are trying their best to change that.At Tigertime.info you can show your support by signing up and telling your friends about it.The David Shepard Wildlife Foundation was set up by the renowned painter to highlight the perilous sate of some of this little planet's most celebrated creatures. His artwork (you’ve almost certainly seen it) has helped to raise awareness, but this site is aiming to take the message to the social media masses.So sign up today, and show your support for a big cat facing a very big problem.

Monday 29/7/13 – www.familytraveller.com
If you’re looking for an escpae with the family, familytraveller.com can help. This is a site for families to find their perfect holidays, together. It’s not your average bucket shop package merchant, and it’s not some ridiculously overpriced exclusive number either.This is good, solid family travel booking, advice and comparisons, for and from real people.

Monday 22/7/13 – www.sported.org.uk
Two words that will probably even now still provoke a certain amount of sniggering among the chattering classes: Olympic legacy.London 2012 was supposed to reignite this green and pleasant land with the fire of unrivalled sporting glory, and if you look at our recent run of successes – the Lions, Andy Murray, Chris Froome and the like – you’d think everything was peachy.But it’s not.Grass-roots sport is still in a poorly state and the Olympics don’t really seem to have had the desired effect at that level.So, while everything is rosy at the moment and the back pages are filled with our nation’s sporting heroes straining under the weight of yet more silverware, without organisations like sported.org.uk it’s possible that we won’t see that in a few years' time.This site offers support to grass-roots and community sports projects around the UK, and is campaigning hard to make sure the glory days of the summer of 2012 don’t get forgotten too soon. You can donate through this site, or find other ways you can lend your support, no matter where you live.

Friday – 19/7/13 – www.visualnews.com
There are literally millions of ways for you to entertain your eyeballs online, aren’t there?visualnews.com is one we’ve found to be a cut above many of the others.Here you’ll find an eclectic array of multimedia content that they’ve stumbled on, been sent, or made themselves, and it covers a wide gamut of topics, from design to culture and from technology to data visualisation.It’s a site that’s based in California, and that shows in its choice of material and easygoing, approachable style.This is a new firm favourite around here, and the weekly email is a great way to stay in touch with the more useful eye candy on the web.

Thursday 18/7/13 – www.theatlantic.com
It’s rare that an organisation founded in the 1850s can still be seen as a pioneer, but in theatlantic.com it’s safe to say that it's still forging ahead with new editorial ideas, pushing boundaries and promoting new talent.This is the online version of the US-based political, cultural and literary magazine The Atlantic, and it's got one of the best digital set-ups we’ve seen.This online news portal presents clear thinking, concise reporting and erudite commentary on all kinds of issues affecting the United States and far beyond.If you want to keep an eye on what’s happening Stateside, you can do far worse than this family of well-run news sites. Oh, and they’ve got apps for these too – so why not add a new slant to your newsgathering and consumption?

Wednesday 17/7/13 – www.muddypaws.co.uk
There’s a good reason that pet dogs are often called man’s best friend. They become a big part of many people’s families and looking after them can be an enjoyable part of daily life.And when the sun shines, there’s nothing nicer than a long walk to make the most of the good weather. But when the sun really shines, it can be very uncomfortable for our four-legged friends. The dangers of leaving them in locked cars are well known, but many dogs find the really hot weather unbearable – you trying doing anything in 30C heat while wearing a fur coat.But there are things you can do to keep your pooch protected, and at muddypaws.co.uk you find some of the cooler ones. There are chilled jackets, and toys and summer essentials to keep your canine companion entertained but safe while the summer months make long walks a little impractical.

Tuesday 16/7/13 – www.quickanddirtytips.com
Most of will know somebody who is good at something. It’s what happens in life. You go to school, college or work and you meet people that just sort of know stuff. It’s how we learn and it’s also how we get things done if we can’t do it ourselves – you ask a friend.But the chances that everybody knows somebody that knows something about everything (if you follow) are quite slim. So quickanddirtytips.com is like having a collection of virtual mates at your fingertips for when you come across something that you don’t know how to do.It might be a grammar question, a minor medical issue, a DIY task or how to get your unruly pet to behave itself. Here you’ll find a host of answers - and if you don’t find what you need you can simply leave your question for the experts to ponder and get back to you.All the advice is concise and easy to understand so no matter what your problem, you should find some answers here.

Monday – www.direct-teetimes.co.uk
Summer has (maybe! finally arrived. Here in the UK, we’ve had more than 48 hours with sunshine.I know; it’s incredible.So outdoor activities might be starting to register as something you may want to take part in. If one of those is golf, then here’s a site you really should bookmark.Golf can be an expensive game. All those lessons, all that kit, and then you turn up at a course to find they want a second mortgage just to play.But with direct-teetimes.co.uk you can save bundles of cash by booking online, using its realtime tool that's hooked into courses all over the place.They’re the same people who run one of the best online golf shops, so they’re well established and well connected with courses all over the country.If you fancy getting out there and partaking in one of the most frustrating yet reward pastimes available, then this site can help you do it a bit cheaper.

Friday 12/7/13 – www.yoosli.com
Despite the best efforts of Alpen over the years, the idea of muesli for breakfast isn’t always an appealing one. The stuff you buy can be a gruelling mix of desiccated fruit and flakes of what once were healthy grains. And kids won’t go near it.A better option has always been to make your own. That way you get all the good stuff and can sneak in a few choice ingredients that turn your breakfast from a trial to a treat and something even the little ones might try. But who has time for that these days?Enter yoosli.com. Here you can choose from a dizzying array of muesli mixes that will please any palate. You choose your ingredients and add them to your bespoke mix and then just sit back and wait for your personalised breakfast to wing its way to you.This takes all the juggling of jars and measuring of oats, flakes and other messy things out of the equation, and the results really are a giant leap from anything you’ll find on your supermarket’s shelves.

Wednesday 10/7/13 – www.picyou.com
Yesterday we were going retro with ways to turn your Instagram snaps into fridge magnets. But what if you don’t have Instagram? How can you apply similar filters online? That’s where picyou.com comes in. You can sign up using your Twitter or Facebook account to apply filters to your images, with a choice of eight cool vintage, sepia and grunge-like filters. What’s cool about PicYou is that you can apply the filter to the image with the dimensions as is, or you can add a Polaroid-like frame to the image, just as Instagram does.PicYou is also a social network unto itself, where you can follow other users, add images to your favourites (or ‘Like’ them), and leave comments. The site also makes it incredibly easy to share images posted on PicYou pretty much anywhere on the Web.

Tuesday 9/7/13 – www.stickygram.com
We’ve often spoken about how all these digital pictures we keep generating have been the undoing of the printed photograph, but things are not all lost.Retro has been the buzzword in tech circles for a while now, and people are harking back to days gone by because they like the way things looked back then. Take Instagram, a platform that has taken a few Photoshop filters and become a billion-dollar business.It’s huge but still leaves you with no physical output. One great way to bring those digital images into the real world is stickygram.com. Here you can plug in your Instagram account and make your pictures into cool fridge magnets.And there’s not much more retro than that combination.

Monday 8/7/13 – www.thedropdate.com
Once upon a time, and our younger listeners are going to have to bear with us on this one, trainers were footwear you wore to do physical activity.Actual sport.I know, I know, it sounds crazy, but you’d go into a sport shop (they used to sell things like footballs and badminton racquets) and you’d ask for a pair of tennis shoes, or running shoes, or even cross-trainers, if you were feeling a bit undecided about which physical activity you were going to undertake.But now trainers are more than just footwear.They are a fashion, an industry, even a currency, and the rarer they are the more desirable they become to the sneaker freaks out there.If you want to see what the latest must-haves are, you could try thedropdate.com, where they show all the coolest trainers trends, from retro classics to custom limited editions.These are not your average plimsoles.

Thursday 4/7/13 – www.wearetea.com
We've spoken about our love of coffee on Overdrive a couple of times in recent weeks. But then it occurred to me, when I got a telling off from Mrs Darren, that I was being biased against tea drinkers. And I must confess, she was right… there are loads of tea drinkers so today we’ll redress the balance.At wearetea.com you can get your hands on some of the best tea around, all from the comfort of your own home.So there. Balance restored.Now…where’s my coffee!?

Wednesday 3/7/13 – www.little-wardrobe.co.uk
Children grow. This isn’t really ground breaking news. Keeping them fed, watered and clothed gets to be a full-time job and an expense that just keeps growing with them.Week in, week out, you’ll need to be buying them new clothes or shoes and soon the novelty of buying miniatures of the stuff you like wears very thin, and the whole thing becomes a bit of a chore. You’re also left with bagfuls of clothes that don’t fit any more.But now, finally, there’s a brilliant solution.At little-wardrobe.co.uk, you can stock up on top-quality, nearly new clothes and also offload the stuff your kids have grown out of.You send them bundles of clothes and earn credits. Then use those credits to get new stuff. You only pay from the shipping and admin side of things. Simple, affordable and set to be successful, we reckon.

Monday 1/7/13 - www.housetrip.com
Today's website was a suggestion from our very own Breakfast Show host Ian Gilmour. If you've been listening to Breakfast recently you'll know that Ian took a city break in France. He chose his accommodation through our website of the day and has been raving about it! Have a look at housetrip.com if you're planning a break anytime soon.Here you'll find what the site describes as the greatest alternative to hotels. You can book anything from a single room to a whole apartment at various destinations around the world. With a great choice of locations and prices, this could be the future of travel.

Friday 28/6/13 – www. disney.go.com/monsters-university/create-a-monster
They’re back! Mike and Sully are heading to these shores again soon as Disney brings us the back story behind everybody’s favourite on-screen monsters.Monsters University goes back to the time before the gruesome twosome joined Monsters Inc. and started collecting screams to power Monstropolis.It is, of course, another masterpiece in the making from Pixar, and to celebrate the film’s release they’ve come up with disney.go.com/monsters-university/create-a-monster, where you can create your very own member of the University of Fear student body.Kids will love this, and big kids will too. Choose body shape, fur colour, freakish facial features and then campus accessories and voila! You have your very own monster.Once you’ve got your monster you can download and share it wherever you like.

Wednesday 26/6/13 – www.gandysflipflops.com
Following on quite nicely from yesterday’s site about buying things in a more ethically aware way, here’s an amazing story of how some good can come out of tragic events.The two brothers behind gandysflipflops.com lost their parents in the Boxing Day Tsunami that devastated Asia in 2004. It was an event that would understandably have a fundamental impact on their lives but it also inspired a desire to see what they could do to make a significant change.The result is a footwear brand that produces stylish flipflops and then channels the profits into good causes that help orphans all over the world.If you’re restocking your summer wardrobe this year, we reckon you could do a lot worse than adding a pair of these to your shopping list.

Tuesday 25/6/13 – www.emptypockettraders.com
If you’ve learned anything over the years about the Overdrive team it’s got to be this: we love coffee.We love long coffees, strong coffees, short coffees, milky coffees, iced coffees. We love coffees served just about any way you can think of, but most of all we love good coffees.And “good” doesn’t just mean how it tastes either. We’re big fans of doing the right thing wherever and whenever we can, so emptypockettraders.com, a new source of Fairtrade and ethical coffee, is right up our street.What we really like about this is just how easy it is to get good coffee delivered. Choose a subscription, based on how much you drink, and they’ll send you a new stash of coffee every month.And every drop of it will be sourced from only the best suppliers, with the most reliable ethical standards. Shipping to the UK is free. Great tasting, ethically sourced coffee by subscription is one of the best ideas we’ve seen in ages

Monday 24/6/13 – www.bbcgoodfood.com
Here’s something delicious to start the week - an old favourite that's had a bit of makeover and is now even more palatable.bbcgoodfood.com is the first stop for many people when looking for new recipes and new ideas in the kitchen. The site has always been fast, easy on the eye, easy to use and best of all customisable – you could collect your favourites recipes into your own folder for easy reference.All that’s still true, but it’s better on all fronts.Finding what you want takes seconds and it’s had a redesign that makes it look much cleaner on screen and is easier to navigate round.The best enhancement for us though is that you can now organise your recipes into sub-categories, to help you to find stuff even more easily. If you’ve got a favourite menu for when friends come over, you can stick all those recipes together for easier access.

Wednesday 19/6/13 – www.alesbymail.co.uk
As the summer finally arrives on these shores many people’s thoughts turn to sultry evenings spent in a fragrant pub garden supping a glass of something cool, refreshing and flavoursome.Beer drinking is going though something of a renaissance too, with microbreweries and artisan beers starting to become a lot more commonplace in pubs and bars.But if you want to drink them in the comfort of your own home, you're going to need a good supplier.And alesbymail.co.uk is one such supplier. It stocks a huge range of specialist beers by the bottle, case or keg and will deliver it to pretty much anywhere on the planet.So if you value your tastebuds and fancy some fine suds to keep your thirst at bay, you could do much worse. Of course, as if we need to tell you, always drink responsibly.

Tuesday 18/6/13 – www.playmapscube.com
Another of those clever Chrome Experiments that surface from time to time, playmapscube.com takes Google Maps into a whole new area – gaming.Imagine your favourite cities arranged on the sides of a cube. Then, using your cursor, you have to navigate your way through various challenges. The cube spins in 3D, and the movement guides your little “ball" through streets, paths and along railway lines. It’s about as good a time waster as we’ve seen in ages.This will keep you busy at your desk and if your boss asks what you’re up to, you can just say you’re planning your route to your next meeting.

Monday 17/6/13 – www.theweatheroutlook.com
It’s fair to say that here in Scotland we’re all just a bit obsessed with the weather.This year, summer isn't really happening. The skies are still grey, the mercury barely rises above 15 degrees most days and people haven’t yet had the bottle to leave the house without an umbrella. It’s rubbish. But will it ever change?There are loads of great sites for checking what the weather will be doing for the next few days, but one of the best we’ve found for looking a bit further ahead is theweatheroutlook.com.Here you can choose which dates you want to know about – a lot more useful if you’re trying to plan a short break or a trip to one of the festivals or big sporting events taking place over the next few weeks.This site could be the best summer accessory you use this year.

Friday 7/6/13 – www.quartermaester.info
Do you watch the TV show Game of Thrones?The show is a popular medieval fantasy of epic proportions, centering on a number of warring factions struggling for control of a fictional world that's been long divided and is facing a bit of a chilly spell.So it’s a soap opera with dragons.But judging by quartermaester.info I’m perhaps being a bit flippant. Because the picture this extraordinary interactive map paints is of a complex fantasy world that has been created so intricately, that only a resource this extensive and detailed could possibly hope to explain it to a layman like me.If you’re a fan, you’re going to love this. If not, you still have to admire the work that’s gone into to something like this.

Thursday 6/6/13 – www.cloudappreciationsociety.org
When’s the last time you just took a moment, stopped where you were and looked up? It’s something we probably all did a lot more of when we were younger, before the everyday distractions of adulthood got in the way of simply enjoying things because they are enjoyable.But looking up at the sky and seeing shapes in the clouds is a universal thing, especially if cloudappreciationsociety.org is anything to go by.In recent weeks, thousands upon thousands of ordinary people have joined up, simply to show that they too like to look to the skies and see beauty in the everyday. They’ve now even made a bestselling book about clouds that look like “other things”.It’s a romantic notion that strikes a chord in this hectic world and is the perfect antidote to a rather dreary Wednesday during the wettest spring in years.On the bright side though, that does mean there are plenty of clouds to look at…

Wednesday 5/6/13 – www.wizards.com/magic
Recently I felt the need to find out what all the fuss was about when it came to fantasy gaming. You know the sorts of things, Dungeons and Dragons and the like.It was when I was looking into this genre I came across Magic: The Gathering. It’s a collectible card game that has definitely grabbed my geeky attention. It seems to be a big deal! From what I can see online it’s quite the gaming phenomenon… so obviously I felt the need to get involved.The first place to start if you, like me, are keen to find out more about this strategy card game is wizards.com/magic . The site gives you an overview of the rules, suggests ways to get started and even has links to free digital downloads so you can start practicing before you unleash your plainswalker on the multiverse.Trust me, once you’ve spent some time on the site, that last sentence will make sense!I’m off to zip up my anorak now!

Monday 3/6/13 – www.makethingsdostuff.co.uk
There’s been a lot of talk recently about how the internet can be a dark place. And I suppose it’s true. It can be. But that doesn’t mean that it has to be! There are chinks of light, rays of brilliance that shine bright enough to put all the nasty stuff into the shade. And we reckon that makethingsdostuff.co.uk is just such a ray of light.Here they’re trying to mobilise the next generation of people who will do incredible things with digital technology and judging by their launch event last week, it’s going to be an exciting world if this lot get cracking.In an age when the online world is being seen as the root of all evil, it’s gratifying to know there are some good people out there and they really are fighting the good fight.

Friday 31/5/13 – www.cannes.chivas.com
The next time anyone says to you that you're not seeing "the big picture" you can simply send them to this page cannes.chivas.com.This incredible image of Cannes on the French Riviera, brought to us by the people at Chivas Regal whisky, shows the home of the famous festival in all its glory. It's claimed to be the world's longest panoramic photo and who are we to argue? It’s certainly an epic Photoshop job, if nothing else.With its outstanding detail, this elongated image really shows off the glitz and the glamour of one of the world’s most famous festival destinations. You can zoom in on the faces and places that are staples of the celebrity pages of magazines and newspapers the world over at this time of year. It doesn't matter whether the Cannes Festival is really your thing, you have to admire this picture.

Thursday 30/5/13 – www.inlovewithfashion.com
We’ve talked about buying clothes online a few times. And very often one of the most persuasive factors for doing so is price. High street fashions at bargain prices are something that many people go looking for. But given recent events, so is ethically sourced clothing.At inlovewithfashion.com most of the clothes are made in the UK, so you know they’re not being made in sweatshops. It's also the biggest-selling concession in Top Shop, so you know it's got its fingers on the fashion pulse.It’s a family-run firm that’s really on the up, and its really starting to make a name for itself, with celebrities and the fashion press.For women with an eye for fashion, and an even keener one for the latest trends, you could do much worse.

Wednesday 29/5/13 – www.tweetails.com
There's nothing more life-affirming than being told you're a genius. It doesn't happen that often, at least for most people it doesn't. But if you're a Twitter user, that's just what tweetails.com might do for you.There are any number of online surveys and quizzes that purport to tell you how smart you are but, for the most part, they're utter nonsense.This isn't though. It's actually based on some science. The app analyses your last 1,000 tweets (fewer will do too - that's just the maximum they use) and generates a report that tells you all sorts of useful stuff about how you use Twitter.Your efficiency, your speed, the length of time you spend tweeting, your most used words and hashtags - it's all here.They use this to give you a rating, and that's possibly where you might get to be called a genius. Needless to say… I wasn’t!

Monday 27/5/13 – www.webuybooks.co.uk
Moving from print to screen is a big step. Newspapers are trying to do it, magazines are starting to make it work quite well, and, arguably, the advertising world is starting to make the move successfully too.But there has been one transition that has proved more successful than any other: books. EBook readers have been around for a few years now, and it's no longer that unusual to see almost every member of a train carriage with their noses stuck into a Kindle or an iPad. They just work. Yes, there are downsides - you can't easily lend somebody your eBook when you're done with it, and you probably won’t form any emotional attachment to a digital file as you would with a favourite dog-eared paperback, but they really do make the leap from paper to pixel very well.The other downside is what to do with your old books once you make the move. If you fancy recouping some of the cost, try webuybooks.co.uk here you can input your ISBN and they'll give you a value for your unwanted tome. Print out the free postage label, send your book and sit back and wait for the cash to roll in.

Friday 24/5/13 – www.yummypets.com
Occasionally, just occasionally we are struck dumb by something we find onlineThat happened today when we stumbled upon yummypets.com.It's a new social network for pets… a social ‘petwork’ I suppose!This is a new service to the UK but it’s the “number one social network for pets in France”Once you take a look, you’ll see that pet owners will love this. If you’re on Facebook, you’ll probably have a few friends who just love to post pictures of their dog or cat. So there’s clearly an appetite, and this will feed it quite nicely. It’s actually a well-built social tool as well, with familiar features and an already vibrant community.And, bearing in mind that us Brits are generally a bit potty about our pets, it's probably going to be a roaring success.

Thursday 23/5/13 – www.repixl.com
It’s rare these days that you’ll see an image that isn’t of at least passable quality. The age of grainy, out of focus, badly exposed photos is fast coming a distant memory as the technology we all carry around in our pockets makes capturing brilliant images about as easy as it can be.But we all still like to make the most of what we capture and professional photo-editing services have become the new professional print services.With repixl.com you can upload an image and within hours you’ll have a professionally edited work of art delivered back to you at a fraction of the cost of the high-street suppliers. You can store images in your unlimited gallery for free, and we reckon this is a service that will take on the big names in picture storage, let alone photo editing.

Wednesday 22/5/13 – www.coffitivity.com
If you're lucky enough to be employed somewhere that supports flexible working, you’ve probably stretched the boundaries of where it’s possible to do some work from time to time.One place that’s seen a boom in hosting the army of flexible workers is the once humble coffee shop.If your cup of hot coffee doesn’t come with a code for the establishment’s wireless network, they’re simply doing it wrong. Some places will let you stay all day too. You just need to buy the occasional top-up of your decaf soya latte.And there’s something about the ambience, isn’t there? There’s something about the place that just gets those creative juices flowing. And it’s not just the caffeine.At least, that’s certainly what coffitivity.com would have you believe. And it's got research to prove it. No, really.Here you can plug into that ambience anytime you like, with the pre-recorded coffee shop soundtrack. It's the sounds of a coffee shop going about its business – the clink of the cups, the chatter of the customers, the ringing of the till and all those other humdrum noises.Weird, but somehow captivating, and if you work alone you might find it strangely comforting.

Tuesday 21/5/13 – www.geoguesser.com
Here’s an easy question for you: where are you? Where are you, exactly?Said it was easy, didn’t we? All you need to do is take a quick glance around and you’ll know exactly where you are. It’ll be somewhere you’re very familiar with, or if not, it will at least be somewhere you’ll remember travelling to. See? Easy.Now try geoguessr.com. This drops you somewhere on the planet and all you've got to go on is the images from Google Street View to help you figure out where you are. Drop a pin on the map and you’ll see how close you get. You get five goes, and the closer you get, the higher you score.This is so simple, you might think it’s a bit of a flash in the pan but this is one of the most addictive things we’ve seen come out of Google Maps in ages.

Friday 17/5/13 – www.foodrevolutionday.com
Are you a foodie? If so, how old were you when that happened? At what age did you actually say “Ooh, that looks nice” or “I think I’ll try something different for dinner…”?We’re guessing it probably wasn’t when you were a child, because, for the most part, children simply don’t do that. There are rare exceptions, but getting a healthy meal into a young child can be one of the most challenging parts of any parent’s day. It’s understandable when they end up just shoving any old thing in front of their offspring simply to fill them up.If that sounds in any way familiar, then help is at hand. The help comes in the shape of Jamie Oliver, and whether you love or hate his programmes or his cooking, you can’t argue that he has managed to change the way people think about food.And that’s precisely what foodrevolutionday.com is about too. It’s a global event, taking place today, that aims to get people to gather together and celebrate, share and enjoy good food and the basic cooking skills that go into making it.It’s got loads of celebrity backing and is getting bigger each year, so why not get involved too?

Thursday 16/5/13 – www.purplestuff.co.uk/space
Back in March we were all a-flutter about the Voyager space programme and whether or not it had finally reached the edge of our Solar System. The debate rages, but one thing we couldn’t really answer at the time was just how far away is that? You can say it in numbers, but you really need a sense of scale to get your head round it,That’s where our website of the day comes in: purplestuff.co.uk/space, a handy infographic from last year that illustrates just how staggeringly enormous our known universe is. Scrolling down you reach each new layer of the visible space around us and the objects that exist there.It’s not that long before the man-made objects are few and far between, then it’s just planets, comets and lots and lots of space. Eventually you reach the Voyager probes and you do suddenly realise that they really have travelled a long way. The end of the graphic adds a further sense of the enormity of the universe. If you get that far, of course.

Monday 13/5/13 – www.peopletree.co.uk
We touched on this topic last week, but the clothing industry, and specifically where our clothes actually come from, is still in the news. For decades, we’ve all enjoyed affordable fashions, and very few of us have given a second thought to the source of the cheap clothes we buy, or the conditions under which they are produced.But that has been changing over the past few years. The idea of fair trade, ethically sourced goods is really taking hold with many consumers, and supermarkets in particular are starting to add more and more fair trade lines to their shelves.What about clothes? One of the few places we’ve found that only sells ethically sourced clothes is peopletree.co.ukBut you can forget the crude, chunky knits and hessian weave shirts that you might be imagining though – this is top quality fashion that anybody would want to wear, and it’s all come from places where the workers get a fair deal and don’t have to work in sweatshop conditions.

Thursday 9/5/13 – www. theloveofcoffee.co.uk
Here on Overdrive we love a good brew, but we’re all very different people and the way we all take our coffee is as varied as we are.For some it’s straight up, black, unadulterated. Others want it short, strong and pungent. Some people add lots of milk.All different, all particular, and all generally disappointed by the coffee that gets made in the office.If you go to a supermarket, you’re not necessarily going to find coffee that will suit everybody’s tastes or the way they like it made. For that, you need a specialist. Like theloveofcoffee.co.uk.This is one of the better sites we’ve found for sourcing not only the right coffees, but also the right grinds. You choose your bean, then the coarseness of the grind depending on how you make your brew. And then choose your weight. It’s quick, easy and - compared to many others we’ve seen - very affordable.

Wednesday 8/5/13 – www.glamping.com
Yesterday was a lovely day. The sun was shining. And now, well now, it isn’t! It’s horrid so our thoughts are starting to turn to getting away from it all on holiday. Will we jet off on a package holiday for some guaranteed sunshine and cheap cocktails? Or shall we indulge our patriotism and do what many do and say in the UK? A "staycation". We could even go camping.And this is where you will split the room. You've got the people who love nothing more than spending a few nights under canvas, with just the bare essentials to keep you going. The great outdoors, the sounds of nature, the midnight trek across cowpat-strewn fields to find somewhere to pee.And then there's those that prefer a few creature comforts. Like lights. Or running water. And glamping.com is aimed squarely at this second reluctant adventurer.Luxury camping is all the rage. Spacious tents with wood burners, hot showers, pedestal baths and even flat screen tellies. It's not camping as many of us would recognise it, but it's bloody marvellous when you zip open that door and see the oasis of comfort that awaits within.With this site you can find your inner camper in some of the finest destinations on the planet.

Monday 6/5/13 – www.myplayertwin.com
They’re starting to hand out the silverware, the wooden spoons and the usual clichéd platitudes as the football season heads towards its final days. How will footy fans survive without their fix? There’s Fifa 13 of course, and YouTube. That might do. But if you want something a little more in your face, literally, why not try myplayertwin.com.Using the latest face recognition technology, they’ll scan a picture of you to find which Premiership player you most look like. Now if that’s not a recipe for some fun this summer, I don’t know what is.Get your doppelganger sorted and see how long and in how many places you can pass yourself off as a top-flight player.All good fun. Unless it tells you your twin is Wayne Rooney, obviously…

Friday 3/5/13 – www.joinmyband.co.uk
Relationships can be tricky at the best of times. Working relationships, family relationships, personal relationships, long distance relationships - they all take a bit of work.Creative relationships are just the same. If you want to create beautiful things, you need to surround yourself with the right people. The kind of people you can bounce ideas off and be inspired by. This is especially true for musicians. But what if you can't find those people? What if you're brimming with great melodies but really need a rhythm section to bring it all together? Or, you're a brilliant vocalist who needs a backing band? Where do you go? Well, joinmyband.co.uk is one option.Here you can search for musical soulmates in your area, or nationwide if you think you need to cast your net a bit wider.This is the biggest musicians' classifieds service in the UK, so if you can't find who you need to complete your musical line-up, they probably don't live here.

Wednesday 1/5/13 – www.foe.co.uk
With all the global fist shaking of late around the actions of North Korea, you could be forgiven for thinking that weapons of mass destruction should be top of our ‘Worry’ list. But the thing that could spell extinction for us humans is much less obvious - the humble bumble bee.Their populations are being decimated across the globe, and the reasons are only partly understood.The victory for campaigners like Friends of the Earth, online at foe.co.uk recently in Brussels means that pesticides that are known to harm the bee population can no longer be used.But that’s only part of it. If bees don’t recover, their essential pollenation won’t happen and the knock-on effect of that isn’t just a lack of flowers, but a very real and potentially catastrophic impact on agriculture.Friends of the Earth is doing everything it can to raise awareness of this and many other causes affecting our little green planet.So take a look to see what small changes you can make that could help to save our planet. Literally.

Monday 29/4/13 – www.jaro.com
Famously, Bill Gates now employees his wife to give away his money. It’s a full-time job. Giving away money. Wow! Just think about that. Somebody’s actual job is giving away money.Begs a few questions doesn’t it? How long will it take to give it all away? Is this the best job in the world? What would you do in the same situation?Well, with jaro.com, you could be in a situation to find out. Sort of.This is a new online game that aims to raise a billion dollars.This money will then be split. It’ll make one lucky person very, very rich. And it will also help a number of charities carry on doing the brilliant work they do.You buy a ticket, pledge how much you want to go into the charity pot, and also how much goes into the prize fund. Then you get to play the game.If you’re smart, and just a little bit fortunate, you could be the one to walk away with a share of a billion dollars.That’d be nice, eh?!

Friday 26/4/13 – www.goodguide.com
Good and bad – a couple of abstract concepts that follow us through life like the proverbial angel and devil on our shoulders. Most of us instinctively know what bad is.But good? That’s often a bit trickier to put your finger on, and unfortunately these days we’re often at the mercy of the marketers and advertisers. They spend countless millions and all their energy telling us what’s good for us, on almost every level. Cars, food, clothes, bubble bath, software, milk – you name it, somebody somewhere has run a campaign about its goodness.But how good is good? It’s subjective surely? Not always. At goodguide.com they look at all these products and apply a simple set of rules and filters to each, so they you can then make a more educated decision about whether to believe the claims on the posters.We love this site. It’s confirmed a few suspicions for the more cynical among us, and has also shown us a few things that will now be regularly added to the shopping basket.

Thursday 25/4/13 – www.everything5pounds.com
It’s not surprising that sites like everything5pounds.com are booming. Everybody is trying to make their money go a bit further, so this outlet for women’s and kids’ fashions is proving popular.As the name might suggest, everything here is a fiver. Shoes, bags, coats, jeans, accessories - the lot. Some are end of season lines, others are just bought in bulk from the suppliers. Either way, you’re getting high street fashions at a fraction of the cost.To really make the savings you need to buy more than just one or two items – postage is a fixed cost, so it doesn’t matter how much you buy. And this is something that everyone can use as it ships worldwide.Just like the £1 shops that are slowly taking over the UK’s high streets, you’re likely to see more of this kind of thing popping up. As the stigma attached to shopping in bargain outlets disappears, we can all start to make the savings.We’d like to see a menswear section here soon too, please.

Wednesday 24/4/13 – www.symbaloo.com
A homepage that you can personalise isn’t exactly a new idea. You can do it in Google, Facebook, Twitter, anywhere really. But what if you want to take a step back and have something that houses all your other homepages?The idea of tiles or icons which launch your favourite apps is familiar to anybody with a smartphone and with symbaloo.com you get something a bit like that, but for your desktop.You’ll need to create a free account, but once that’s done you can start gathering your online life together in one simple, elegant interface. Everything you use on a daily basis can be dragged and dropped to exactly where you need it.Some of the icons will act like widgets, opening up a new box within the page. Others will take you to your websites. This is a nice way to personalise your web experience, by creating a virtual desktop that you can keep in sync wherever you are.

Tuesday 23/4/13 – www.glipho.com
Have you taken time to read any online blogs lately? There are some absolute gems out there. Insightful, incisive, informative and for the vast majority, largely unread.This is a crying shame, but the reality is that there are so many people pouring forth their opinions and innermost feelings that it’s very hard to focus on the ones that are worth reading and furthermore, worth sticking with.With glipho.com that focus does become a little sharper though. This is social blogging. You sign up and within minutes you can start writing. Notes become drafts, drafts become “gliphs”, then you publish and your piece is dropped into the mix. The site pushes it out to your social networks too, so you’re already hitting a friendly audience.As a reader you can also personalise the way you consume others’ stuff. You can follow the people you like, the subjects you’re into, the themes and trends that are developing online.This is a beta version, but we reckon it’s a nice new addition to the online publishing landscape.

Monday 22/4/13 – selflessportraits.com
There can’t be many people out there who haven’t pondered, prevaricated and procrastinated over what to use as an avatar.If you’re on a social network, you’ve had to choose how to present yourself.If you’re on LInkedIn, you’ve probably played it quite straight. On Twitter, you might’ve displayed your slightly cheekier side. And on Facebook, anything could happen really, couldn’t it?Well, it certainly could now.With selflessportraits.com you’re asking somebody else to provide you with a new profile picture.It’s a collaborative art project that’s spanning the globe. People from every continent are drawing each other’s avatars and sharing a thoroughly contemporary, remote, yet somehow intimate, experience.The results are eclectic and brilliant, and we’re struggling to think of a better way to show a little individuality online.If you want to take part, it’s quid pro quo: you won’t get your portrait back until you upload one you’ve done of somebody else.This one, we love.

Wednesday 17/4/13 – www.donottouch.org
We love our website of the day today, because its so many things in one page.Firstly, it’s a pretty innovative way to make a music video.Subsequently, it’s a great way to get an otherwise obscure track some serious airplay.But it’s also an interesting piece of social commentary. If you’ve hit this link on a smartphone you’ll have got what the name is about - they don’t want you to touch your screen. They want your cursor.They want it because it’s the building block for what they do. But they also want it because it probably won’t be around for much longer.It’s probably not scaremongering to suggest that the humble cursor is likely to all but disappear, as the touchscreen takes over more and more of our lives.So, follow the on-screen prompts at donottouch.org and your cursor will became part of the latest iteration of this crowd-sourced music video.What we love more than just about anything else though, is all those cursors that don’t follow the instructions. Either people don’t get it, or, and this is what we prefer to think, some people just want to go their own way.We like that.

Tuesday 16/4/13 – www.pointerpointer.com
Sometimes with our website of the day, we unashamedly bring you a page that does absolutely nothing useful.A page that won’t change the world, but might well put a smile on your face. A site like pointerpointer.com that has been making us smile all afternoon.Just move your mouse cursor into the central box on the page, and wait for the site do work its magic. Seconds later, you’ve got a random person pointing to your pointer!Silly? Yes! Fun? Undoubtedly!

Monday 15/4/13 – www.blirt-magazine.com
The past seven days has seen something of an explosion in interest in what people are saying online.The bloggers have been clogging the airwaves of the mainstream media, as the polarised population of the UK seek out their champions to put forward into the gladiatorial discussion on the whys and wherefores of the death and funeral of Margaret Thatcher.And something that really jumped out in all that noise was blirt-magazine.com, an online magazine written by bloggers.It’s an eclectic mix of subject matter written by some of the best online commentators, and we like the free flowing and unpretentious style of it.If you’re looking for opinion without the political agenda, this could be right up your street.

Friday 12/4/13 – www.wix.com
Every weekday, around about this time, we highlight a different website for you with our Website of the Day.But if you feel you’re missing out on your own online presence, but don’t have the coding skills you think are necessary to get online, don’t worry. Our website of the day today can help you have your own website in just a few clicks. Have a look at wix.com and you’ll find hundreds of templates and designs that are all Google friendly and easy to customize and you can even do it for free!You could be online in no time with our website of the day.

Thursday 11/4/13 – www.traintimes.org.uk
Once upon a time the web was for the true pioneers of code, beavering away in their bedrooms or basement bunkers to craft amazing new things from ones and zeroes. And traintimes.org.uk fits that mould quite well, we reckon.This is a collection of (approximately) live train maps that show you where all the services are on any given line.We fell in love with the London Underground map (yes, it was the Skyfall version, obviously), but the National Rail ones that are available for some of the major mainline stations are just as useful. Its oddly therapeutic watching live progress of the trains online as they approach the rail station just outside this radio stationThe coloured dots show, in as close to real time as you can get, exactly where each train is.

Wednesday 10/4/13 – www.theadventurists.com
As the sun desperately tries to poke it’s face through the clouds and banish the winter blues for another year, it’s likely that you might also be entering that season.The emails start, then the texts, then the Facebook updates. They all say the same thing: “Sponsor me, please.”It's likely to be a marathon request over the next couple of weeks and we’re always slightly envious of those adventurous types who have put in the time and the training to tackle one of the items on many people’s to-do list of life.But what if we told you that we’d found something that could possibly hit the top of that list?At theadventurists.com you’ll find the kind of sponsored events that make a marathon look just a little bit pedestrian.Our favourite is probably the Mongol Rally – 10,000 miles across half the globe in a car only your grandparents would consider sporty.Now, that’s an adventure.

Tuesday 9/4/13 – www.smithandfamily.co.uk
This is something that many of us have been waiting to see for ages.This beta version of smithandfamily.co.uk is the child-friendly offshoot from one of the most popular holiday booking sites among discerning couples.Mr & Mrs Smith was the go-to site for the odd weekend away and the slightly spoily romantic break. Holidays with style and sophistication. Holidays that involved a certain concept that is a thing of the past for many - disposable income.We’re talking about the holidays we used to take before kids came along.Once you have a couple of extra mouths to worry about around the all-you-can-eat buffet, your options do tend to narrow a bit.If you want to keep holidaying with style, it can take weeks of research and you tend to end up following personal recommendations.Smith & Family does most of the research for you and you can book safe in the knowledge that the properties are tasteful, safe and welcoming for you and your brood. Oh, and most of them are recommended by other users of the site.

Monday 8/4/13 – www.moneyadviceservice.org
Maybe, like a lot of people in the country at the moment, you’re having to stretch your finances and be a bit more sensible with your penniesWith all kinds of tax changes, benefit cuts, pension reforms and goodness knows what else coming out of the Chancellor’s little red case, it might be time to get some free, unbiased financial advice.Moneyadviceservice.org will do just that. From ISAs to universal credits and mortgage calculators to budget planners, you‘ll find loads of great tools and free advice here.

Friday 5/4/13 – www. distancetomars.com
It’s Friday afternoon. You’ve had a hard week. You’re almost all set for a big weekend but there’s one little question that’s bugging you: exactly, how far is it to Mars?We understand. We were thing the same thing!Luckily our website of the day today can answer that! Have a look at distancetomars.com This lovely little site illustrates the sheer massiveness of the distance between our little green rock and the Red Planet in a way that even a non-stargazer can get their head around.You’re just a couple of clicks away from an interstellar journey!

Thursday 4/4/13 – www.irocke.com
Thursday 4/4/13 – www.irocke.comFinding music online isn’t exactly hard. Or expensive, for that matter. You can stream or download your favourite artists from any number of different sources, both legal and less than legal.But there’s always going to be one bit of the true music fan’s life that’s overlooked by most of these sites. The live experience. The gig.If you love your music, the chances are you’ll love to hear it live and, unfortunately, that can still be a bit expensive. But not any more.With irocke.com you can stream concerts over the web as they happen.Okay, so you’re not going to find Beyonce or Lady Gaga on here, but you will find thousands of acts who are passionate about live music and never, ever, lip sync.If you’re into discovering new music and you really appreciate the live sound, this is one place you’re going to want to spend some time.

Tuesday 2/4/13 – www.thesurealist.co.uk
Perhaps one of the finest things about the internet is that, almost from the very beginning, it set out to parody itself.Everything you will find at thesurrealist.co.uk will feel somehow familiar if you’ve been online for a few years. With all its quote, phrase and name generators, quizzes and general gentle mickey-taking, it’s a great place to spend a bit of time.They describe them as “web toys”, and that’s exactly what they are.Perfect for winding up your mates (the personality test in particular is good for that) and the slogan generator could have a few advertising types running for the hills with its scarily accurate predictions of clichéd copywriting.

Monday 1/4/13 – www.adviceguide.org.uk
Today is, of course, the annual nightmare for all news operations, including our own.We’ve been bombarded with stories about the next generation of tech that will blow your mind. And, as it is every other year, the challenge is to figure out which, if any of them, are true this April Fool’s Day.We’ve got YouTube’s “competition” and Google’s “treasure map”, just to name a couple of the more obvious ones.But, this April 1st, there are a few other things that aren’t very funny either.One of them is the welfare reforms that are coming into effect today that will leave thousands of people in the UK very confused about where they stand.As ever in these times of uncertainty, there’s one place that UK residents can always rely on to give them solid, no-nonsense advice: the Citizens Advice Bureau online at adviceguide.org.ukWe’re sorry to rain on the jocular parade today, but this government’s raft of benefit cuts could leave many people out of pocket, so we thought it worthwhile to highlight somewhere people can find some help.

Friday 29/3/13 – www.lasptass.com
Overwhelming as it sounds, security experts say you should use a different password for each account you have. LastPass.com securely consolidates multiple passwords into one key-master-like password, automatically fills out Web forms for you and synchronizes across all the computers you use. The basic version is free, while the premium version gives you access to mobile apps, removes ads and promises priority support if you need help.

Thursday 28/3/13 – www.bikehub.co.uk
The Olympic legacy is starting to look a little fragile now that the post-Games glow has been dampened by a long, cold, wet winter. But there is one thing that seems to be bucking that trend and it involves lots and lots of Lycra.Cycling is on the up, despite the horror stories of unsafe roads, ill-prepared riders and yes, of course, the hideous British weather. More people are taking to the saddle than ever before, no doubt spurred on by the rising costs of public transport and the obvious health benefits.But where do you start if you’re a complete novice?One place you could try is bikehub.co.uk.This is a great source of no-nonsense tips and advice on where to buy your bike, where to take it to keep it in tip-top condition and, most importantly, where to ride it safely. The accompanying app also gives you a basic, free route-planning service.If you’re new to life on two wheels, this is a great place to start your learning curve, but seasoned riders will also find much of use here.

Tuesday 26/3/13 – www.wesee.com
Finding pictures online isn't exactly hard. There are a few ways to do it. You can type what you want into any number of search engines and be bombarded by millions of options.You can upload an image to see if something similar exists. You can even upload a picture to find out if and where a picture has been used before. But there aren’t too many places where you can do all of these.At wesee.com they’ve created what they call the “true visual search engine” and we can’t really think of a better way to describe it. Type in your search, or upload your shot and soon you’ll have results from a range of visual and social media sites. This will give you a kind of mood board for each search.This is in beta testing right now and, to be honest, we found it a bit buggy.But we reckon this is the start of something quite useful, so definitely one to watch.

Monday 25/3/13 – www.stinkybad.com
The internet is a truly wonderful place, isn’t it? You can find anything, almost instantly and share it, almost instantly.Marvellous.If only the addresses for all these billions of pages weren’t so cumbersome.Website addresses are rarely catchy, so devices to shorten them have sprung up over the past few years.But this new one takes things to a new level, by always giving your link a simple word.Paste your link into stinkybad.com and you get given a noun. Then you can just tell your mates that they need stinkybad and that word, and they’ll get your link.It makes sharing thinks in social spaces a lot more fun.Okay, so you can’t choose the temporary word you’re given, but it’ll make those tweets and status updates all the more interesting won’t it?

Friday 15/3/13 – www.theimportanceofbeingtrivial.com
Trivia doesn't matter, does it?It's not the important stuff you need to know, or remember, is it?So, why does your brain retain it?Most of us spend our lives collecting random facts and astonishing stats that only every now and again somehow become relevant during a conversation.Birthdays, anniversaries, deadlines - they can all go by the wayside in our ever more hectic lives, but the fact that a London taxi has a turning circle equivalent to a horse and carriage (it had to when it was first designed or it wouldn't have been approved) somehow goes in and stays there.All in the rich pattern of life, eh?But, maybe it is important, because without it, our conversations would be just a little bit duller.So if you think you need to top up your trivia memory bank, can we suggest theimportanceofbeingtrivial.com, a brilliant source of petty things that are worth the sweat.

Thursday 14/3/13 – worldtimeengine.com
Sometime, maybe not often, but sometimes our Website of the Day is actually useful. I won’t pretend that you’re going to see the prettiest website I’ve ever stumbled across when you visit worldtimeengine.com, but what you will find is a site that answers the eternal question “what time is it in…”? Type in the city, or even town, you want to know the time in and the rest is obvious.Simple and easy to use… what more could you ask for?

Wednesday 13/3/13 – www.fussfreeflavours.com
Food blogs are as common as fast food takeaways, and, as a general rule, they’re about as appetising.So when a good one comes along, just like a decent takeaway, it’s worth sharing.fussfreeflavours.com is just such a blog. It’s very personal, but written with style, consistency and a very comforting sense of the reality that most people face when it comes to feeding their bellies.What we really like is the ingredient list that shows what recipes it has featuring all those exotic spur-of-the-moment purchases that so many of us have lurking at the back of the cupboard.

Tuesday 12/3/13 – www.indeed.com
There is never a good time to be out of work. Every news report fills your head with doom and gloom and the outlook is pretty bleak for most people.So finding yourself unemployed is daunting.But there are things that will make looking for a job a bit easier and we reckon indeed.com is one of the best.It’s about as simple a search as you can get: you just tell it what you want to do and where, then it will show any and all jobs that fit your¬¬ criteria.Obviously, you can go into more detail, and filter by salary and distance.It won’t make actually getting a job any easier – that’s all down to you - but at least this will help you find the right vacancies.

Monday 11/3/13 - www.crackingideas.com
Wallace and Gromit front this excellent educational site which aims to get primary school children enthused about inventing. There are school lesson plans, a UK-wide competition for kids to submit their best inventions, and a good series of interactive top 10 lists including Cracking Ideas, Idea Crackers, Crackpot ideas and Current Innovations.The interface is fun and superbly designed and its got plenty up it’s sleeve to keep you and the little ones occupied for hours. Log on and have a cracking idea of your own at www.crackingideas.com

Friday 8/3/13 – www.thewomensroom.org.uk
Are you a woman? Are you an expert in your field? Do you feel under-represented in the media? Today is International Woman’s Day, so what better time to highlight a site that exists to remedy just such an inequalitythewomensroom.org.uk is an online database set up to bring together female experts so that they can raise their individual profiles, and when an expert is needed, one can be found.You'd hope that a site like this wouldn't be necessary in the 21st century, but it seems it is, so we applaud and support it, today of all days.

Monday 4/3/13 – www. easyfundraising.org.uk
Unless you’re an eccentric millionaire or a Premiership footballer, it’s fair to say you might be feeling the pinch a little these days.The cost of absolutely everything is going up, and there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight for these times of “austerity”.So it’s no wonder that charities are a bit worried.In many households, the first thing to hit the wall is the money they give to good causes.So a way to keep supporting your favourite charities without feeling like you’re taking food out of your own mouth is always going to prove popular.And so we have easyfundraising.org.uk, where all you need to do is keep doing something that you probably normally do anyway – online shopping.Here, for every pound you spend, the online retailers give a bit to good causes, and judging by the running total, this is one way of supporting charities that’s starting to gain some real momentum.

Friday 1/3/13 – www.quib.ly
Being a parent has never been easy, but in this connected world, it’s truly terrifying when you see a toddler swiping and tapping their way through the latest operating system and find exactly what they want in seconds.All those questions about how you’re going to keep them safe, how you’re going to make sure they don’t get ripped off, humiliated or worse. How are you going to use technology to help their education? Should you give them a mobile phone when they start school, or before? It all comes rushing at you and it can be quite a daunting prospect.So for those with little ’uns, it’s now nice to know that you can turn to quib.ly , a new social space that puts parents in touch with each other and with experts, who can answer all those tricky tech questions and more besides.There are apps, ebooks, games and advice on everything from sensible toys to the right films to put your kids in front of.

Thursday 28/2/13 – www.celebritytoob.com
Life in the spotlight isn’t always all its cracked up to be. And chances are if you’re a celebrity who’s been behaving badly someone will have a photo of it. Our website of the day today isn’t just about embarrassing celeb photos (though there are plenty of those!) but it’s all about celebrity culture, full stop!Have a look at celebritytoob.com to find out the latest celeb gossip – from actors to sports stars – as well as showbiz tweets.It’s your one-stop showbiz shop!

Tuesday 26/2/13 – www.melba.co
Food. It’s a long time since it was simply sustenance. It is now a passion for many, a pastime for some, it’s even a problem for a few. It’s also a multibillion-pound business that reaches into every corner of society.So picking somewhere to grab a quick bit to eat is far from a simple prospect.Once you’ve cruised past the chain restaurants, the takeaways and the gastropubs you start to see just how eclectic restaurants have become. Add in the pop-up restaurants, supper clubs and festivals and the mind (and the mouth) starts to boggle.So melba.co might appeal if this is something you can relate to.Here you’ll see the latest hot venues to try new foods in your area.They cover pop-ups, clubs, taster sessions and workshops too, so you could even end up preparing your own supper.It’s a social network for serious foodies.

 

Monday 25/2/13 – www. new.weavesilk.com
You may remember Silk. It’s an online experimental generative artwork that weaves silk-like patterns simply by clicking and dragging your mouse.It proved popular as an iPad app too.And now it's even better. At new.weavesilk.com you get to play with the latest incarnation of this hugely addictive, mesmerising creative tool.The patterns you create are mathematically generated so they’re actually quite tricky to control fully, and the fact that you can’t go back just makes it even more engaging. You have to go where the calculations controlling the pixels take you. Even the simplest of shapes takes on an ethereal quality as the colours shoot off in different directions with each new click of the mouse.And with a couple of different symmetry styles to choose from, you’ll be creating weird and wonderful masterpieces in no time.It’s perfect for a dull Monday, so enjoy.

Friday 22/2/13 – www.littlebigdetails.com
Life is a bit of a blur at the best of times for most of us, so for anything to really stand out these days, it needs to be a cut above.Take advertising. When’s the last time an ad grabbed you by the scruff of the neck and actually made you pay attention?So for something to really work, it’s needs to be good.It needs to be thought through.It needs to address a need that you didn’t know you even had.It’s about the details.The kinds of things we’re talking about can be found at littlebigdetails.com. Here you’ll find a catalogue of those little extras that people have built into their user interfaces.Those little things that make you go ”ooh, I like that” just when you weren’t expecting anything at all.

Thursday 21/2/13 – www.style-is.co.uk
You’d be forgiven for thinking we’d come over all self-conscious here at Kingdom FM, what with yesterday’s sporty goings on and this one, which is again, all about style. Today's is just a little less frenetic.At style-is.co.uk you get to see and buy the latest fashions, safe in the knowledge that what you’re buying is as ethically sourced as it can be.You might also be forgiven for thinking that might limit your choices. But it doesn’t. Here you’ll find everything you need to keep you bang on trend, and there are more than a few recognisable brands too -proving that ethical shopping doesn’t have to be hand-knitted mohair sandals. That stereotype is, thankfully, dead and buried.Looking good never felt this good before.

Wednesday 20/2/13 – www.s-weat.com
If you’re serious about your sport, you’re probably quite wary about what you wear while you’re doing it.Looking the part is often a very big part of the appeal of stepping out to exert yourself a couple of times a week, and many people swear that their performance improves the more confident they feel.So, where do you go to find the latest trends in sportswear?Yes, you could try your local retail park to see what that soulless aircraft hangar of a sports shop has in stock, or you could try something a little more discerning (and less likely to be full of people who couldn’t run a bath, let a alone a few hundred yards).So, something like s-weat.com then.Here you get a proper online style magazine devoted to the finest sportswear.It’s beautifully shot, expertly researched and a very refreshing way to find out what to wear on the field.And it’s brand new too.

Tuesday 19/2/13 – www.skyfalllodge.com
Skyfall is, quite correctly, being showered with awards and almost universal praise, and it’s certainly a Bond film for the age.It brings the franchise bang up to date, while still keeping true to the heritage of the character and the brand that is James Bond, 007.It’s out now on DVD and Blu-Ray, and to celebrate both, they’ve launched skyfalllodge.com, which offers the extra, extra bits.Any true fan will love this, a fully interactive multimedia look behind the scenes of what is sure to become one of the franchise’s most iconic settings – Bond’s childhood home, and scene of the dramatic climax, Skyfall Lodge.Galleries of stills from the shoot and an audio commentary from the film's director, Sam Mendes, offer a unique insight into the fictional estate and why the remote valley made the perfect setting.Explore the house itself and you’ll find all kinds of treats, including the “living posters” from the ad campaign, production artworks and all kinds of other little nuggets of Skyfall goldIn all, this is a Bond fan’s background paradise.

Monday 18/2/13 – www. hadonejob.com
How was your weekend? Restful? Relaxing? Did you manage to switch off?Or, did you have any little jobs or chores to do?If you did, we hope you had more success than the numpties whose efforts are on display at hadonejob.com.Here we see a collection of quite staggering accomplishments of jobsworths, bureaucrats and the just plain stupid as they prove that even the most basic, common sense tasks can proved beyond some people.They had just one thing they needed to do, and they couldn’t even manage that.Quite how these people get through a day without doing themselves some serious harm is hard to believe.The perfect nonsense to ease your way into the new week.

Friday 15/2/13 – www.eatweeds.co.uk
What are you up to at the weekend? Anything nice? Seeing some friends or family? Or going for a bracing winter walk in the countryside, maybe?Well if that last one features in your plans, why don’t you grab your dinner while you’re at it?Don’t worry, we’re not suggesting you grab a rifle and hunting knife to go all hunter-gatherer, but you could try a bit of foraging.It’s becoming quite the culinary fashion to eat what you find, and eatweeds.co.uk is the best place to start if you don’t want to end up munching on something that really won’t do you any favours.With handy guides, recipes and even guided courses available through here, you’ll be foraging successfully in no time.And in these times of austerity and “what’s actually in my dinner?” food scandals, surely every penny not given to a supermarket can only be a good thing.

Thursday 14/2/13 – www.myoptique.com
There is probably no bigger sartorial decision than that faced by spectacle wearers.If you wear glasses, you have to get it right.Thankfully, these days there are such things as designer frames, with all the top bods getting in on the act of sculpting beautiful specs for all tastes.But that still doesn’t make it any easier. Just a bit more time-consuming as you try to filter out the unsuitables before you even stick them on your nose. Oh, and it makes for an expensive mistake if you get it wrong too.But online help is at hand. At myoptique.com, you can us a style finder, which guides you towards frames that are likely to suit the shape of your face, your hair colour and skin tone.Using this, you’re already half way to knowing what might suit you. Then all you have to do is find exactly the right pair from the selection on offer, all chosen by a team of style-conscious eyewear experts.

Wednesday 13/2/13 – www. quickreads.org.uk
Do you enjoy reading? If you said no, you wouldn’t be alone. It might be through choice. It might be through lack of time. Or, it could be because, like an estimated 12 million adults in the UK, you might not be very confident when it comes to reading.There used to be a bit of stigma attached to it too, but thankfully, with organisations like quickreads.org.uk doing their bit, those days are gone.Here you can find out all about a charity that gets big-name authors to write shorter books that are easy to read. This gives people a new starting point – one that doesn’t intimidate or confuse, and offers some great books from some of the biggest names in contemporary publishing.It’s a great idea, and judging by the case studies, it’s really taking off.We wish this campaign the very best of luck.

Tuesday 12/2/13 – www.camerakids.biz
It’s fair to say that parenting these days has been made much easier by technology.But that same technology also throws up some significant challenges. Keeping your kids safe online is a full-time job, and instilling in them the proper skills to get the most out of the latest gadgets and gizmos is something that a lot of parents don’t always find the time for, or don’t see as a priority.So, how about letting the professionals do it for you?At camerakids.biz you can find out about photography workshops for youngsters run by one of the UK’s top photographers, working in tandem with professional educationalists and supported by Fujifilm (who know a thing or two about good pictures).These courses will take the innate creativity in any young mind and channel it into a positive use of the latest digital photography gear, and judging by the online portfolio, the results would put most grown-ups to shame.This is a great new idea and we reckon it’s got a solid future.

Monday 11/2/13 – www.doglost.co.uk
If you’ve never had a pet, today’s recommendation probably won’t mean much to you. But, if you’ve ever cuddled up to something furry and then lost it, you’ll know that it can be a horrible time.Recently, former Spice Girl Emma Bunton lost her chocolate Labrador while out walking and one of the many organisations to lend their help was doglost.co.uk.This is a nationwide database for dog owners to hook into if they lose their pet. You can also get in touch with them if you find a stray.With over 40,000 volunteers ready to help find your dog should it go walkies without permission, this is one of the best ways to get reunited with your errant pooch.Us Brits are be a bit soppy about man's best friend (but we'll never apologise for that) so this one might be a useful bookmark for anybody with a four-legged friend.

Friday 8/2/13 – www.onemillionlovelyletters.com
Ever wondered why we always try to fit so much into February? It’s the shortest month of the year, yet we cram in Pancake Day, Valentine’s Day, Mardi Gras and loads of other things. Maybe it’s because we need a lift. A boost.Something just to make us feel a bit better.It’s something many people don’t think about. But that can’t be said about Jodi Ann Bickley.This extraordinary lady has set up onemillionlovelyletters.com, a site that exists purely to make people feel a bit better.The way Jodi sees it, we’ve all got so busy that it’s easy to forget that some people just need to be told something nice.Think about it. When’s the last time somebody said something that lifted your whole day? Hopefully, it wasn’t that long ago.But if it was, maybe you should drop Jodi a line through this site. Or maybe you know somebody else who could do with a lift this month. Or, any other month for that matter.A million letters is going to take a bit of getting through.We wish Jodi the very best of luck with this simple, lovely, heart-warming idea.

Wednesday 6/2/13 – www. video-game-wallpapers.com
If you're into gaming, it's possibly the case that you're really into gaming.You immerse yourself in each new title that takes your fancy. You study the packaging, you do your online research to find tips and tricks, you lock yourself away in a darkened room, ready to take on the new challenge. And, most importantly, you personalise your settings.If that personalisation stretches to your desktop wallpapers, then you're in luck.At video-game-wallpapers.com you can get just what you need for your Mac, PC, smartphone or tablet, without all that screengrabbing and tidying up in Photoshop.All the biggest and latest titles are here in a range of the most-popular screen resolutions and best of all, they're free.Simply choose your favourite title, select the screen size or sizes you want and download them.

Tuesday 5/2/13 – www.twocation.com
There are a couple of things that the very public activity on the HMV social media feeds have shown us in the past week.The first is that social networking can be a very powerful force for grabbing attention, be it good or bad.Brands that do it right spend a lot of time and money implementing their social media strategies, and there are a number of very useful tools to help them do this.One such tool is Twocation.com, a clever little Twitter app that shows you where your followers are in the real world.Valuable information if you're trying to use your social presence to target your consumers and advocates.Say you're a design company based in Paris. You use Twocation and find out that the vast majority of your followers are based in the US. It would subsequently make sense to start listing your prices in dollars, wouldn’t it?See? Valuable.Even if you’re not part of a business, it’s quite interesting to see where all those avatars actually live, if you're that way inclined.

Monday 4/2/13 – www.stuffster.com
Wish lists. We’re big fans.You get to put a load of stuff you want on to a list and then, if you're lucky, your nearest and dearest buy it for you. Or, you just get it for yourself when the time is right. Either way, they’re a great idea.But then the pricing can be a bit of a lottery, can’t it?You put an item on your list when it’s in the sale and then the price shoots up a day later. Or, even worse, somebody buys you something and the price drops like a stone mere minutes after they’ve checked out.If only there was something that could update you on price changes. Then you could pay only what you want to pay, or update your wish lists to reflect the changes.Well, now there is stuffster.com, which does precisely that.You make a list of all the stuff you want, set the prices you want to pay, and then as soon as those prices are available, you get notified.It might not directly replace your wish list for birthdays and so on, but for the stuff you really want, this is the best way we’ve seen to make sure you get the right prices.

Thursday 31/1/13 – www. enoughfoodif.org
There’s probably never been a time when big business and the process of government have been under more scrutiny.
The information age has meant that people can’t hide their activities the way they perhaps used to.
The tax affairs of the big corporates are in the public domain and world leaders have their every word and deed pored over by a media-savvy, switched-on audience.
And it’s partly this phenomenon that <b>enoughfoodif.org</b> is hoping to hook into.
It’s a campaign to raise awareness of global hunger, an issue that it’s almost hard to believe still exists in this day and age.
But it does, and this campaign wants people to take to their social networks and spread the word. They want to let governments know that enough is enough and they need to deliver on their promises. And they want big business to stop their relentless crusade for profit and start looking after something far more important – the future of the developing world.
It’s an age-old problem but now it’s being tackled in a thoroughly 21st-century way.
 

Tuesday 29/1/13 – www. seatplan.co.uk
There is nothing like the theatre. The intimacy, the atmosphere, the history, the culture. When it comes to entertainment, there’s nothing like it.
But like anything that’s a little bit special, it comes at a price. A night out in London’s West End has never been a bargain, but if you’re taking in a show, the costs can be truly astronomical.
So it’s more than just a little annoying when your seat turns out to be rubbish.
And that’s the thinking behind <b> seatplan.co.uk </b>, a new crowd-sourcing venture that seeks to identify all those restricted view and squashed up seats in the capital’s “theatreland.”
If you’re long in the leg, or don’t fancy getting a crick in the neck to see the latest young stars treading the boards, it’s might be worth checking in here to see where’s best avoided when you’re next heading to the Big Smoke.
 

Monday 28/1/13 – www.royalmail.com

When a big company tells you it’s changed its website following “customers’ feedback”, we tend to approach with a certain amount of trepidation.
So we clicked on the new-look royalmail.com with one eye closed – just in case it was a horror show.It’s not. In fact, they’ve made this look and feel like a site worthy of one of the most remarkable services we have in the UK.All the tools you need to send and track your mail are here as well as clear and easy to find information about all aspects of sending and receiving post.
The Royal Mail gets a lot of stick every time it puts its prices up, but we still reckon it's terrific value for money.And now it has a first-class website too.
 

 

Wednesday 23/1/13 – www.xgames.com

 

Us Brits are in the grip of an extreme sporting craze like never before; extreme ice scraping and pavement ice-dancing all count... I'm pretty sure of that!But we can only dream of exploits like those at xgames.com , the sporting event that’s off the scale when it comes to adrenaline and thrills.In Aspen tomorrow, the world’s best daredevil sportsmen and women get together to show the world what they can do, in the latest in the global series of extreme sporting spectacles.These guys really know how to make the most of the snow and with this newly redesigned site, you can get right in amongst the action.

 

Tuesday 22/1/13 – www.cybersmartawards.org

 

You probably get a lot of your news and do the bulk of your shopping online. It’s likely that you’ve got at least one social network in your life and maybe you even have your own blog. Yep, you’ve got it going on, digitally speaking.But it’s not the same for everybody.Some people don’t get the benefits of comparison sites when it comes to renewing their car insurance or buying a new telly. Can you imagine that?Worse that any of that though, is the people that do go online and get into all sorts of horrible situations, simply because they haven’t had a helping hand when first taking the plunge.Keeping kids and the inexperienced safe and helping people get the most out of their digital lives is a huge responsibility, and it’s one that’s increasingly being shared by numerous organisations and even individuals.Technology has moved so fast that society hasn’t been able to keep up, but thankfully, some people are now putting in the hard work to get things back on an even keel.At cybersmartawards.org it’s time to recognise and reward these people for what they’re doing. Log on and nominate your favourite now!

 

Friday 18/1/13 – www. roughtrade.com

 

So, it seems that little Nipper has finally stopped staring into that big old gramophone and is heading for the big record shop in the sky.HMV is on its last legs and if it does disappear, with it goes the fond music-buying memories of a generation.The act of buying music in an actual shop has become almost a niche activity nowadays, so it’s probably not that surprising to see the bigger operators struggling.Perhaps it was HMVs size that prevented it from being as agile as it needed to be, just to stay viable in a fast-moving digital world.Whatever the reason, us Brits are now going to have to hunt around a bit more if we want to own music we can hold in our hands.But all is not lost. Some independent record shops are just about holding their own in these troubled economic times and one of our favourites is roughtrade.com.Always known as the record shop for the serious fan, here you can sign up to browse their online catalogue, which is as eclectic and refreshing as ever.A true independent record shop on your desktop.Now that’s progress.

 

Friday 11/1/13 – www. planetfour.org

 

Last night saw the end of yet another successful run for Stargazing Live, the BBC astronomy programme that’s gone a long way to making science a bit more accessible.Presented by comedian Dara Ó Briain and Professor Brian Cox, it spent another three nights starring into the night skies and introducing a new generation to the idea that science can be entertaining.And one major beneficiary of the series is planetfour.orgRight now, we know more about Mars than we would ever have thought possible. But that’s still doesn’t mean we know very much.This is one of several “citizen science projects” and they're looking for people to help them explore the surface of the Red Planet.The surface of Mars has been well photographed, and here you can help them to identify features on the planet’s surface using your screen and mouse.It’s a great way of taking scientific discovery to the masses, and it’s strangely addictive once you get going.

 

Thursday 10/1/13 – www.green-tyres.org.uk

 

We've been basking in some slightly unseasonal milder weather in the UK recently, but we know a cold snap is on the way.Cue travel chaos.You'd think, here in the Northern Hemisphere, we could cope with a light dusting of snow every now and again, but we Brits seem to go to pieces in the wintry weather.One thing we're not very good at, is preparing our cars for driving in winter. Particularly when it comes to the rubber.A good set of tyres can mean the difference between life and death, but many people don’t do their research and just stick the cheapest thing they can find on their car.But the right tyres can not only keep you safe, they can save you money too.At green-tyres.org.uk you can find out all about the greener option.With its handy fuel saver app, you can see how much money you could save, all the while knowing that you can also stay safe this winter.

 

Wednesday 9/1/13 – www.qooq.com.

 

It's one of those moments in life that seems to happen in slow motion. But that doesn't mean you can do anything to stop it.You're in the kitchen, lovingly preparing a delicious meal. You're diligently following the recipe, which is handily displayed on your tablet computer.Something happens and you knock your saucepan. It wobbles on the cooker and all you can do is watch, in aforementioned slow motion, as a liberal dollop of your fresh pasta sauce arcs across the kitchen and lands firmly on your prized touchscreen monolith. Disaster.If only there were a tablet designed for this harsh environment.Well, meet qooq.com. It is just that.A robust tablet that’s made for life in a kitchen.Chock full of recipes, with easy to follow videos in delicious HD, it's the perfect gadget for chefs of all abilities.Yes, you can carry on using your iPad, Android or Windows 8 machine if you want to, but who wants to take the risk, eh?

 

Tuesday 8/1/13 – www.beetrone.ch.

 

If you’ve gone dry for January, and a lot of people have this year we’ve noticed, then you might, just possibly, be missing beer.But you don’t have to. You can still enjoy beer without actually drinking, can’t you?Um, well, maybe not, but soon you might be able to.At beertone.ch they are working on the definitive (okay, the only) Swiss beer colour guide.That’s right, they are painstakingly researching more than 200 Swiss beers and categorising them by all colour, as well as a few other attributes that we won’t go into for the benefit of all you abstainers.Each beer is lovingly poured, photographed and catalogued for the true colour connoisseur to savour.This is a great idea and will appeal to anybody who works with colour and enjoys an Alpine beer, and all they need is a few people to pre-order to make it a reality. There are bonuses for early adopters too.

 

Monday 7/1/13 – www. childcare.co.uk.

 

As New Year resolutions go, having one that is “go out more” doesn’t sound all that ambitious to some people.But, if you have small children, you’ll know that just getting out of the house for a few hours for some grown-up time can be almost impossible.If you’re lucky, you have friends or family close by who will happily take a stint sitting on your sofa while you try to reclaim a little social exposure.If you’re not, you have to rely on finding a babysitter, and that’s where comes in very handy.If you’re struggling to find somebody to look after your little ‘uns, this is the best place we’ve seen to start looking.All the babysitters, nannies and childminders you’ll find here are rated and reviewed by other users, so you can be confident about any bookings you make.They’re also not an agency, so there are no fees or hidden costs either.A simple, easy to use site that will make any parent’s life a lot easier.

 

Friday 4/1/13 – www.christmasinaday.co.uk.

 

It’s Twelfth Night this weekend, so Christmas is officially over. But before you hack down the tree, shove the last mince pie in your mouth and change your avatar back to one without a Santa hat, let us tell you about christmasinaday.co.uk.Its looking at what Christmas means for different people.Yes, there will be the stereotypical family get-togethers, with crowds of excited children and mountains of food, but what this project is really looking to uncover is the other side of Christmas – the bits that people don’t see or think about.Emergency workers going about their daily lives, the people who choose not to celebrate, the families for whom the festive period is anything but festive.It’s a fascinating idea, and if you want to be involved, all you have to do is send in your footage and wait to see if your Christmas story makes the cut.

 

Thursday 3/1/13 – www.retronaut.com

 

You’ve probably only really got a couple of days to still be banging on about last year before people expect you to get on with 2013, but that doesn’t mean you can’t go back a bit further before that happens.While you’re in a retrospective mood take a look at retronaut.com, which bills itself as your “passport to the past.”This is a visual treat for nostalgic types, and it’s proved to be a scary trip down memory lane for many of us here at Kingdom FM as the screams of, “There’s no way that was 20 year ago!” have been ringing out with startling regularity.Retronaut will also appeal to fans of social history, as this eclectic timeline drifts through the ages with an expert eye for the memorable image and the forgotten trends.You really can get lost in time here and we reckon it’s a great place to spend a few minutes before the hurly burly of the new year proper kicks off next week

 

Friday 21/12/12 – www. moose.torchbox.com

 

It’s Friday.More than that, it’s the last Friday before Christmas.Let’s face it, you’re not going to get much work done today, are you? What with mince pies, lunch, secret Santa, trying to find out who snogged who at the Christmas party and everything else that comes with that "last day of school" feeling, you might as well just kick back and have some fun.So, in keeping with all of this, may we introduce you to moose.torchbox.comManuel sits on a wall in an office owned by a digital creative agency.Which probably explains why Manuel talks. In fact, he’ll say anything you like, because he’ll say whatever you tweet to him.So you can probably start to see why Manuel might come in handy today.Say you finally do find out who snogged who at the Christmas party – what better way to spread the word?We love Manuel and we reckon he might have quite a busy day today.

 

Thursday 20/12/12 – www.theuselessweb.com

 

What is the actual point of Thursday anyway?Monday has a use: it’s there for us all to universally despise, as our weekends come crashing to an undignified end.Tuesday’s there for us to start thinking about probably getting some meaningful work done. Maybe.Wednesday is, as any office bore will drone on about “hump day”.Friday is obviously, technically the weekend and is therefore officially A Good Thing.But then there's Thursday. It’s just plain useless. It does nothing. It's even tried to market itself as “the new Friday”.So for this useless day, have theuselessweb.com, a one-click portal to the wonders of the waste of time web.This will suck you in as you discover more and more useless but entertaining sites.Soon be Friday, thank goodness...

 

Wednesday 19/12/12 – www.vizify.com

 

As a general rule, the only people who tend to think of themselves as brands are celebrities, sports stars and entrepreneurs.But, in this marketing-savvy world, it's becoming more the case that we are all, actually, brands.We market ourselves every day, through our interactions with people - face to face, on the phone and increasingly through social media.It's this last one that really holds the key to it.Most of us use Facebook, Twitter and all the others to let the world know what we're thinking, what we're doing and what we're into. To an extent, we're marketing ourselves through sharing our opinions and passions.So it's not really surprising that a service like vizify.com has come along.Here, you can turn all your likes, tweets, posts and pins into a one-stop, self-promoting web page. They call it a graphical bio.For people actively looking to change careers or get a job, this is another potentially indispensable channel for getting noticed.For those just looking for another outlet for their words and pictures, it's a simple new way to present them. Tell them who you are by using your social media IDs and they do the rest.We really like this one, and reckon it could become a new standard for showing yourself off a bit.

 

Tuesday 18/12/12 – www. duckduckgo.com

 

We all know that the big online companies keep information about us. Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Yahoo, Google – they all use every keystroke we enter into their servers to track us and tailor their content to make it easier for advertisers to send us the messages they best see fit.For the most part, we go along with it.But, if you prefer a clean search – one that won’t leave any traces on your digital profile then perhaps duckduckgo.com may be of interest.Here, you can search without leaving any digital footprints for anybody to follow. That means your sudden whim to take up hang-gliding won’t mean that every ad you see for the rest of the year is from life assurance firms.Because that’s how it works on the other sites.Here, you might not get the same search experience as some of the more familiar, big-name engines, but that doesn’t mean it’s not very clever.They use “goodies” to help their algorithms along, and anybody can suggest these "goodies” to make searching faster and more relevant.Overall, we like this as an option and it could well be a name to watch.

 

Monday 17/12/12 – www.lovethis.com

 

Fresh off the digital production lines comes lovethis.com , a brand new way to share the really important things in life.If you’re sitting in a pub and think your mate would like it, with Love This you can let them know straight away.Seen a nice pair of boots your other half would like? Send them a note through this and they’ve got it stored safely for when payday comes.Sharing things through more traditional social networks is all well and good, but they can get a bit lost in your timeline.Here, they’re stored forever and easy to find. So when you need a plumber that your mate’s recommended, it’s just a few clicks away.

 

Thursday 22/11/12 – www.tunnelbear.com

 

There are many things that the internet can lay claim to. One is undoubtedly making this world much smaller, with the free flow of information and the breaking down of geographical and cultural barriers. Another is Justin Bieber, so it’s not all roses, but we reckon we’re still up on the deal. However, we might think we’re in a smaller world of free-flowing information, but there are still some barriers. Often unseen, these are usually put in place to restrict access to online content, based on where you live. And that’s just rubbish. So if you want to catch up with the latest US TV shows, or take a peek behind the bamboo curtain, you’re going to need some kind of private access. And that’s exactly what tunnelbear.com gives you – a virtual private network that will grant access to those corners of the internet that some people don’t want everybody to see. A most useful mammal.

 

Wednesday 21/11/12 – www.hushhush.com

 

The idea of the secret sale is no longer really such a secret at all. There are numerous sites you can sign up with to get access to the sales that ordinary people just don’t get to see. Of course, there’s usually nothing stopping ordinary people from actually signing up, so in reality they’re just another way of drumming up interest in an increasingly crowded virtual high street. And hushhush.com is the latest addition to the secret sale site stable and it comes from the team behind MyVoucherCodes. This site has only just gone live, but with over a quarter of a million people signed up before launch, it’s already offering some great deals on some high-end goods from the likes of Calvin Klein and Dolce and Gabbana. So we reckon this is well worth a punt in the run up to Christmas.

 

Wednesday 20/11/12 – www.thepeoplesoperator.com

 

Could this be the future of mobile communication? That's what the team behind thepeoplesoperator.com would have us all believe.It’s a new mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), piggybacking on the EE network that offers a more ethical choice for UK mobile customers.The difference The People's Operator is pushing is that the MVNO is pledging to give 25 per cent of profits to charity. You can also choose to pledge 10 per cent of your bill to a cause of your choice, be it your local school or the RSPCA.This could prove popular. Especially when they get their hands on the new 4G network too.J ust keep and eye on data costs though, as this is a network better suited to calls and texts based on the deals it has on offer currently.Worth watching.

 

Monday 19/11/12 – www.ontrees.com

 

If you’re somebody who doesn’t really have to worry about budgeting or managing your finances, then ontrees.com will be of no interest to you at all.For the other 99.9 per cent of people, we reckon you should take a very special interest in this one.It’s the first of its kind and is already making waves.You sign up and add all your online financial details. Not as scary as it sounds because this service uses the same security software as the banks, and as it’s a “read-only” service, you don’t have to worry about money moving in and out anyway.Once you’re registered, you can keep track of all your spending, both through the desktop web link or through the mobile apps.Your spending is split into categories and your budgets are instantly visible.This is an innovative and easy new way to keep track of your finances and we reckon it’s going to be huge.

 

Friday 16/11/12 – www. yourgrind.com

 

You might think we’d save a site all about coffee for a Monday morning, when we’re all likely to need a little booster to get ready for the week. We could do that. Or we could tell you about it now and give you a couple of days to take a look at yourgrind.com and stock up on some decent stuff to kick start your week. Here, you’ll find nothing but the good stuff. The highest quality beans sourced from some of the best farms in the world, and these guys will ship their coffee only when it’s absolutely at its best. With what looks like a bit of a backlash and potentially a widespread boycott of a certain high street chain imminent in the UK, we reckon a few more people might be interested in getting into brewing their own coffee of a morning. If that’s you, for whatever reason, you might want to take a look here.

 

Thursday 15/11/12 – www. priceofastamp.co.uk

 

Too much information. That’s the trouble these days, isn’t it? We’re expected to absorb and retain more information now than ever before. So it’s not all that surprising that some bits fall by the wayside, no matter how simple they should be to remember, or how useful they are. These are often bits of information that, once a upon a time, we could all recall without having to rely on technology to help us. Here’s one of those bits of information you might not know the answer to: how much is a first class postage stamp? If you're not sure, best bookmark this then: priceofastamp.co.uk, because that’s all this site will tell you. And we reckon that, without looking, quite a few people won't know. Daft, we know, but still pretty useful.

 

Wednesday 14/11/12 – www.megashopbot.com

 

As we hurtle headlong into the frenzy of the festive period and the annual orgy of consumerism that some like to call Christmas, we see a clear divide of two types of consumer. It's a time when some go mad, splurge and spend money like it's going out of fashion. But some will try to contain themselves, and we reckon megashopbot.com will appeal to anyone in the latter group. This is the shopping comparison site of shopping comparison sites as it sweeps all the others to find the best deals offered across the board.It saves a lot of legwork, literally, as you don't have to leave the house, and the only jostling you'll be doing is for the best position on the sofa.This is a cracking way to save some serious cash this Christmas.

 

Tuesday 13/11/12 – www.ghostery.com

 

Ever heard of Google? Heard of Yahoo? Bing?Yes? No? Maybe…?Yeah, OK, we’ll stop asking silly questions, but here’s one you might not know: ghostery.com.Might be worth getting to know though, especially if you’re at all concerned about companies tailoring their advertising content to you and your online habits.All the big names will track your surfing and use that data to try to sell you stuff.Some people like the personalised feel of ads that just seem to fit with what they’re into.But it’s not everybody’s cup of tea, so with Ghostery you can opt out of dozens of companies’ behavourial tracking, so your surfing habits don’t get turned into targeted advertising.It’s quick, easy and, best of all, free.So if you want your online landscape to remain untainted by advertisers trying to second-guess you, this is a solution worth exploring.

 

Monday 12/11/12 – www. foodbeats.com

 

Mrs Darren always knows when I've been cooking. The kitchen's a mess, there're dishes everywhere and the smoke detector is going off! Oh, and the stereo is cranked up to full volume - not just to drown out the smoke alarm though.I love music when I cook, and the meal dictates the mood. I mean, who doesn't listen to 'Beat It' when they're making scrambled egg?! It seem I'm not alone in thinking that either, as the people at Lurpak and LastFM have got together and made a really nifty little site. At foodbeats.com you type in what you're cooking and how long you're cooking for and off it goes to compile the perfect playlist to accompany your culinary flourishes. Music and food have always gone well together, and now you don't even have to do the mixing.

 

Friday 9/11/12 – www. shortlist.com

 

Friday 9/11/12 – www. shortlist.comFive years ago, if you'd stood in front of your bank manager and said "I'm going to start a magazine. Can you lend me some money please?" they would have asked some fairly searching questions before they agreed. But, the people behind shortlist.com did exactly that. They launched a high-quality, feature-rich publication for men that took one look at the traditional men's magazines and said, "we're not doing it like that". Instead of plastering every page with wannabe WAGs, they focused on what men really want to read about: films, fashion, music, literature and technology. They gave real men what they actually wanted. They then gave it away free. Thousands of copies of the magazine are handed out at train stations and city centres and it's become a must-read for many.The companion website is where you need to come if you can't wait a week, and we reckon it's ace!

 

Thursday 8/11/12 - www.lovelyjojos.com

 

Have you finalised your Christmas shopping list yet? If not, one place to find a few contemporary and quirky objects of desire is www.lovelyjojos.com. Here you'll find T-shirts, baby clothes, bags, posters and prints from one of the UK's best up-and-coming designers. We really like the Christmas cards, with simple playful messages that will raise a smile on even the most "bah humbug" of faces.The prices are more than reasonable and, this being a small business, you get the lovely personal service that is so appreciated at this time of year. Yes, you can trust your order to one of the giant online retailers with questionable tax set-ups if you like. Or you can support a a brilliant small business and get some truly memorable gifts while you're at it.

 

Wednesday 7/11/12 – www.thebathroomdiaries.com//p>

 

In the past we’ve looked at travel sites which review hotels, resorts, restaurants and self-catering properties. But this is the first travel site I’ve seen which focuses exclusively on public conveniences. thebathroomdiaries.com boasts that it “rates 12000+ public bathrooms in more than 120 countries, providing a wealth of information to both travellers and urban dwellers”. Site users are invited to submit nominations for the Golden Plunger Awards, which set out to honour the globe’s most ornate and impressive public loos.

 

Tuesday 6/11/12 – www. coca-cola.co.uk/health

 

Did you know that the only two places on Earth that you can't buy a Coke are North Korea and Cuba?Just think about that. You can visit practically any country in the world and pick up a bottle or can of ice-cold Coca-Cola. So, perhaps it's not surprising that Coca-Cola feel they have a kind of responsibility to their incalculable number of regular customers. This site coca-cola.co.uk/health and the 'Work It Out' Calculator is at least a sign that they're admitting that their bestselling beverage isn't exactly the healthiest option, even if you can buy it anywhere. Chug back an ice cold Coke and you'd better be lacing up those running shoes within a few minutes or you could be saying goodbye to skinny fit jeans in a hurry. On the plus side of this site is that anything that helps you to keep a check on what you consume has got to be a good thing.

 

Monday 5/11/12 – www.typingkaraoke.com

 

There are two kinds of typing.There is the two-finger, head down, shoulders hunched, tongue sticking slightly out in concentration method favoured by most people (especially at Kingdom FM!) Then there is that other kind. The kind favoured by people who clearly aren't actually normal. That "Oh, look at me – I can type 90 words a minute and do my online shopping and talk to you at the same time" method. Well, if you're in the first group, here's something that might help you get a bit closer to your promotion into the second group: typingkaraoke.com. It's about the most fun you can have while practising your typing, as you try to keep up with the song lyrics playing out on screen. It's nicely retro too and, depending on how your boss feels about your personal development plan, we reckon you could class this as work.…?

 

Friday 2/11/12 – www. lookforlonger.com

 

lookforlonger.com is a brilliant and addictive online game from CBSOutdoor, the advertising people, and Virgin Media, in which you have to identify 75 Tube stations from the visual clues on screen. Sounds simple, doesn't it? But some of these are devilishly devious. You've really got to be a fan of the tortured pun to get some of them. But, with some nice prizes up for grabs, this is one time waster that might not be a total waste of time.

 

Thursday 1/11/12 - www.kik.com

 

Texting is, let's face it, so last year.So here comes kik.com. It's cross-platform so it doesn't matter what phones your mates have, you can get the same instant, always-on conversation style with everybody in your address book. And with the service running as part of your data plan or over Wi-Fi, it won't cost you the earth. The app is available for all smartphones and there are also other apps that will "kik" too, so you can share the stuff you like with the people you love. Early days for this, but it's taking off steadily and could be the next name bandied around the mainstream media when social media inevitably comes to the fore again.

 

Wednesday 31/10/12 – www.thisiswhyimbroke.com

 

ThisIsWhyImBroke.com is a free online magazine run by a bunch of geeks who partake in way too much online window shopping. Their staff has compiled an ever growing list of cool, useful and not so useful, funny, and unique products. This site is really geared for people with money to burn, but even if you don't it's fun to look at some of these products that include a $1,000 Super Mario Guitar, a $10,000 Lord of The Rings Suit of Armor and a $100,000 Water Jet Pack to name a few. We can all dream can't we?

 

Tuesday 30/10/12 - www.mrporter.com

 

Once upon a time it was perfectly acceptable for your average bloke to jump out of bed of a morning, pull on some jeans, grab a relatively clean shirt and get on with his day without fear of scrutiny or ridicule. But the modern age has changed all that and many men now spend as much, if not more, on their appearance as women do. Nothing wrong with it, but you might find that the fairer sex has a lot more choice when it comes to buying the things they want. High street shops have certainly upped their game in recent years, but online, it can still be a bit hit or miss. Enter mrporter.com. It’s got style tips, features, trends and, of course, a huge range of up-to-date fashions to buy online.If you’re looking for somewhere to keep you sartorially current, you could do much worse than here.

 

Monday 29/10/12 – www. stackmagazines.com

 

One area that's seen real growth in recent times is independent magazines. You know: those little enterprises that produce some of the highest quality print design and journalism, but usually only get seen by a small audience. There are loads of them, and anybody wanting to keep up to date is going to struggle in an ever changing and fast moving magazine market. One way to keep your finger on the print pulse is stackmagazines.com. Here you can sign up for a subscription that will let you see the very best in independent print publishing. Every edition they send will be chosen from their stable of cool new titles and you can almost guarantee that you're going to see something fresh.

 

Friday 26/10/12 – www.iruler.net

 

When we first saw iruler.net, we all laughed. We laughed quite a lot. But then somebody pointed out something that turned a laughing stock into a functional site that’s well worth a bit of space on anybody’s bookmarks bar or favourites list. All somebody said was: ”I need to measure things all the time, and I can never fund a ruler." It stopped us laughing because we realised he was right. So what better than an on-screen ruler for you to hold whatever you need up to for a quick measurement? It doesn’t do anything else, it just measures things and for that simple elegance and usefulness we reckon this is worthy of Website of the Day status.

 

Thursday 25/10/12 – www. reelizer.com

 

It's a phase that most people go through. You get yourself a bit of independence and the first thing you do is go out and buy a big film poster to stick on your wall. For some, it's a way of saying "look at what I'm into" – arty films with beautiful actors, hidden meanings and unfathomable plot twists. Or perhaps you're saying you can relate to the central character in your chosen movie pin-up. Whatever your motives, movie posters are an art form that most people will experience, and that's why we love reelizer.com. Here you'll find reworked, reimagined and reinvented film artworks that will bring some of the most iconic film posters bang up to date. The artists here have totally transformed their favourite posters and we love the results.

 

Wednesday 24/10/12 – www. lovelypigeon.com

 

Today we're bringing you some of the best contemporary stationery, jewellery and homewares around, courtesy of a one-woman creative whirlwind based here in Fife! Have a look at lovelypigeon.com, a site brimming with creations that bridge a gap between classic and contemporary styling quite brilliantly. It’s vintage-inspired chic with a thoroughly modern twist. This is the kind of enterprise we love: unique products, great prices and that nice feeling you get when you know you’re not dealing with a faceless corporation funnelling it’s profits to an offshore tax haven. We like!

 

Tuesday 23/10/12 – www. scarletmist.com

 

Buying and selling concert tickets online is hardly new. But buying and selling them and not getting ripped off is quite rare, so scarletmist.com stands out in the crowd. Here you've got real fans selling on unwanted tickets without adding anything to the face value. No booking fees or admin charges, and definitely no premiums just because the gig is a sell-out. You pay what the original purchaser paid. This is a fan-to-fan site, so remember that you're basing all your transactions on trust, so take sensible precautions. But if you've missed out on getting what you want from the box office, this is a great place to pick up tickets to your favourite shows.

 

Monday 22/10/12 – www. abbeyroad.com/crossing

 

At abbeyroad.com/crossing you can watch the HD stream of the zebra crossing in North London made famous by the Fab Four on the album cover of their 11th studio album, Abbey Road.You can watch this stream live to see how long it is before some group of wags decides to re-enact the iconic image. As a general rule, it's not very long!So much so that they offer an archive service, so if you know what time you crossed the road, you can pop back here and grab a still of your antics, then post it straight on to Facebook or Twitter.It's a bit of harmless fun that shows just how strong the allure of the Beatles and their music still is today, so many years after they hit the big time.

 

Friday 19/10/12 – www. bypost.com

 

There's still something nice about the printed word, particularly f you're on the receiving end of something personal and thoughtful. And this brought us to bypost.com Here you log in, download the app and you're up and running. Then you can choose a picture from your iPhone, compose your prose and then it gets printed on to a postcard to be sent to whomever you choose.It's a great idea and makes those occasional thoughtful messages that you might usually send by text or emails a lot more permanent for the recipient. And at just 99p to anywhere on the planet, that's quite a bit of thoughtfulness you're sending for not much cash.

 

Thursday 18/10/12 – www. findanyfilm.com

 

If you're a fan of the functional website name (and we are, for sure) this one will appeal. At findanyfilm.com you can, erm, find any film! If you're a movie buff looking for something to watch this weekend, you won't find many better places to figure out what's worth seeing. It doesn't matter whether you're looking for the latest cinema blockbusters or an art-house classic that's long disappeared from your local Blockbuster, by searching for a film by title, you'll find the places where you can still catch it, buy it or download it. Movie trailers and coming soon sections keep you up to date and they also do a handy link to catch-up telly, so this really is a feast for the square-eyed. A firm favourite with film fans around these parts already.

 

Wednesday 17/10/12 - www.jugit.co.uk

 

Mmmm. milk. It's so versatile and refreshing. You can drink it, cook with it, turn it into ice cream. It's awesome stuff.Shame it comes in those nasty plastic bottles though, eh?They're about the worst thing we can do to the environment and we use millions of them every single day. But what can you do about it?Well, you can try jugit.co.uk now. It's a reusable, recyclable milk jug that you refill with bags of the white stuff. It's quick, hygienic and affordable. And it makes your daily pinta a bit friendlier on the planet. You can buy the bags online and soon you'll be able to buy Jug It at local shops. But the best way is to ask your milkman about it. We love this idea and the homepage will show you just how much plastic it's saving. So drink up. Milk's good for you and now it can be better for the world too.

 

Friday 28/9/12 – www.thatslikewhoa.com

 

It's Friday and that means perhaps it's time to down tools, kick back and take a wander through the more creative quarters of the internet.If the traditional Friday grind in the office is what you're facing, then thatslikewhoa.com might be a good distraction to help get you to the weekend. It's a collection of weird and wonderful bits and pieces gathered together from all over the web. Funky design, creative photography, you name it - this is the stuff that will just make you stop for a moment and enjoy something a little different. It's all pulled together by people who like the funkier, finer things in life and like to share them.

 

Thursday 27/9/12 – www. stumbleupon.com

 

It's not often that we revisit a website but we reckon that stumbleupon.com is well worth the trip down memory lane as it's been completely redesigned and its new beta version is really something a bit special. What you see in the new version is something that's becoming quite common with lots of sites now: features and functionality from smartphone and tablet apps making their way back to the online version.The changes here are designed to make sharing much easier, particularly the things your friends are doing through Facebook and Twitter. The basic premise is still to take you on a tour of web content which you might otherwise not see but now, with the addition of trending sections and lists, this means you can organise the things you like and want to share into a meaningful order, not just a random jumble of things you stumbled across. The other big carryover from the mobile apps is StumbleUpon DNA. Basically this takes what you view and starts to build a picture of who you are and what you're into online.

 

Wednesday 26/9/12 - www.mofarahfoundation.org.uk

 

London 2012 might just be a distant memory for most of us, but I'll bet you still remember the achievements of Mo Farah. His double gold triumph is something that many of us will remember for a long time and most of us will be proud of for years to come. Mo came to Britain as a child escaping poverty and a savage civil war. In the UK he found a new home that celebrates diversity and nurtures and rewards talent and determination. Qualities that Mo has in abundance. So it's not that surprising that he wants to give something back and a while ago he set up mofarahfoundation.org.uk a charity to help children in Africa who will probably never get the opportunities that he did.Following his Olympic success, it's fair to say that this site will, quite rightly, be getting quite a bit of attention. This is one bandwagon we are more than happy to jump on.If you're looking for an Olympic legacy, this is a good place to start.

 

Tuesday 25/9/12 - www.makedecentcoffee.com

 

Napoleon famously said that an army marches on its stomach. It's not that different there, but at Kingdom FM the team marches on caffeine. But we don't get much done around here without a steaming hot cup of something stimulating in front of us, so makedecentcoffee.com has caused quite a stir. Here we've found all the advice, gadgets and ingredients we need to start making (as the name might suggest) decent coffee. It keeps things relatively simple and is as slick a consumer site as we've seen in a while. So, no more high street chains for us, and there's 10 per cent off for the rest of this month too. Make mine a strong one!

 

Monday 24/9/12 - www.flubit.com

 

It's good to want things. Let's face it: wanting things is practically the basis of our society these days, isn't it? We all want more things.But, that doesn't mean we all want to pay through the nose for these things, and that's why flubit.com has grabbed our attention. This goes way beyond the simple comparison sites, which are, ironically, now ten a penny.No, Flubit, takes the fight to the retailers head on and say "here's a punter, now give him a good deal". We love this idea as it puts the power back with the consumer.Tell them what you want, post the link to the best price you've found online and they'll go off to see if they can find a better deal. They don't guarantee results every time but they've got a pretty good track record. So if you're making a significant purchase any time soon, this might be worth checking first.

 

Friday 21/9/12 - www.rememberthemilk.com

 

To round off the week looking at digital ways to get organised, we return to an old favourite: www.rememberthemilk.com. What we like most about this is the way it slots into your existing digital life with minimal disruption. You can email reminders, set them straight from Google apps, Outlook, Twitter, wherever, and now you can even just talk to it using Siri. If you're an iPhone user who's fully embraced the "telling, not touching" revolution that Siri inspires, you're going to like that, and setting it up is dead simple. For everyone else it's not exactly a hardship to set yourself reminders with the aforementioned integration, and the interface is fun, uncluttered and easy to use. The only real downside to this is that you'll need to pay a few quid to get the best out of it with a pro account. But, talk to anybody who uses it and you won't find too many people who think they're not getting value for money.

 

Thursday 20/9/12 - www.workflowy.com

 

Today our website of the day is a flow-based answer to your organisational needs in the shape of www.workflowy.com. For some people, all they need to do is write a list to keep on top of things. But there are lists and then there are proper lists, aren't there?This is definitely the latter, as you're able to divide and sub-divide your lists into categories, projects and task to an almost infinite degree. This is simple, elegant and very easy on the eye website – you even start with a totally blank page – so this will appeal to people who don't want to be dazzled by functionality, but still want the flexibility of smart online tool. The video tutorials will have you getting the most out of this one in no time.

 

Wednesday 19/9/12 - www.trello.com

 

Continuing our trawl of organisational tools, here's one for people who've perhaps moved beyond stickies, task managers and to-do lists into the realms of project management proper. That means people who are looking for some slightly more sophisticated tools.But, luckily, sophisticated doesn't have to mean complicated, as www.trello.com shows quite nicely.Here you can keep an eye on any project you're involved in by recording the various stages, plans, tasks, deadlines and deliverables as cards within an easily navigated on-screen filing system.Think of it as a big whiteboard and a set of very clever sticky notes – everything you need to keep a record of can be added to your board and then organised and shared instantly.With a full suite of mobile apps and online tools available, this is a great solution for teams, but just as useful for individuals looking to get a handle on a busy working life.We like this one a lot. Especially as it's free.

 

Tuesday 18/9/12 - www.listhings.com

 

From the music making shenanigans of yesterdays website of the day, let's move on to something a little simpler. www.listhings.com It's the easiest way we've found to make a note of something and stick it somewhere to pick up later. It's a virtual corkboard that's perfect for your quick memory dumps, and the interface is fast, uncluttered and single-mindedly easy to use. Sharing your "canvas", as they call it, could come in handy in shared households, so this is likely to appeal to students moving out into the big wild world of communal living for the first time, or anybody who needs to keep a group of people updated. You can access your boards from any connected device and although there's no app, the mobile experience is pretty solid, thanks mainly to the overall simplicity. If you're looking for a way to take the humble Post-it note into the 21st century, this is as good a way to do it as we've seen.

 

Monday 17/9/12 - www.incredibox.com

 

It's actually quite hard to describe just how much joy incredibox.com has brought to our world today. Like you, we need to pretend that we're working hard all the time, so while we're hunched over our keyboards we've been making music with our website of the day. You can mix enough of your own beatboxing and acappella loops to make any day at the coalface fly by. It really is quite addictive too. Just when you think you've got it just right, you can suddenly add that little flourish that will create a melodic masterpiece that will have heads bobbing all over the place. Toggle each "performer" on or off and the possibilities are endless. Check the top 50 compositions for a few ideas too.

 

Friday 14/9/12 -www.billmonitor.com

 

How much time do you spend on your phone these days? If you own a smartphone, it's entirely likely that you spend a lot more time using your mobile than you did perhaps just two years ago. The chances are you took out a contract when you bought your phone that seemed like a good deal at the time, but we bet you were locked into it for quite a while? You're not alone if that's the situation you find yourself in.Finding real value for money is a minefield, particularly as the next big new phone has just been released and the cheaper contracts are the ones that are the least flexible.At www.billmonitor.com , a site developed by proper eggheads and endorsed by Ofcom, you can find the deal that's exactly right for you. Tell the site how you use your mobile and the clever algorithms will scour the millions of different tariffs out there to find the one that suits you the best. Users report saving hundreds of pounds in some cases, and with the Chancellor expected to make things far from any easier for most people in the budget tomorrow, any savings you can make must surely be welcome.

 

Thursday 13/9/12 - whatdoestheinternetthink.net

 

For many people these days there are really only two ways to find something out.You ask a mate, who hopefully will point you in the right direction, or you ask the internet.Now. This second one can be a tricky affair and, let's face it; the internet can be a fickle mistress, often leading you into places where you really shouldn't go.There are billions of pages out there and the internet is being asked something thousands of times over, every second of the day.But, what nobody ever asks the internet is what it thinks about something. Imagine being the greatest source of information on the planet and never being asked for an opinion? But now, we can put that right at whatdoestheinternetthink.net.Here you can see what the internet really think about people, events and everything else it's constantly being quizzed about.

 

Wednesday 12/9/12 - indiegogo.com

 

What is it about September that seems to instill a feeling of wanting to do something different?Summer's over, it's back to school, the nights are starting to draw in. Maybe you're coming back from a holiday and you're dreading going back to the daily grind.It seems a lot of people are doing something about it too, judging by the variety and diversity of the projects on display at indiegogo.com It's a US-based crowd funding site where you can post details of your plan and ask for support.There are all sorts here, from new filmmakers seeking backers to people trying to get a small business off the ground.It's a good way to get noticed on a global scale, and you might remember a recent success story we told you about in July. So we know it works (however misguided or mad).All you need to do is come with an idea that will get people to part with their cash.

 

Tuesday 11/9/12 - glos.si

 

Have you ever felt your life was a bit like a film, with you as the central character? Maybe yours has always been a bit of a melodrama. Or perhaps one of those triumphant, uplifting sporting epics? Perhaps even a musical – most of us have imagined a soundtrack to our lives at some point, haven't we?Well, now we have the magazine of your life with glos.siWe love this idea. It takes all your online social activity and lays it out as a kind of feature spread in a magazineHook it up with Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, whatever and soon all your feeds and timelines are presented in glorious, typeset technicolour for you to share with the world. It's fully customisable, so can make each edition your own.So whether your life magazine is Vogue, Vanity Fair or Viz you can see your online life unfold before your eyes.

 

Monday 10/9/12 - london.gov.uk/gifts

 

I think it's fair to say that the UK has put on a pretty impressive Olympic and Paralympic Games over the past few week.But now, as we move into the post-Games era, we have to start thinking about the "L word"; Legacy.It's hoped that the Paralympics in particular have changed British society forever . And London itself will never be the same again either.If you take a look at london.gov.uk/gifts, a new site from the London Mayor's office, you'll see some of the things that the Games will leave behind.It's inspiring and reassuring to hope that the Olympic and Paralympic spirit will live on for years to come.

 

Friday 10/9/12 -istwitterwrong.tumblr.com

 

You'd be forgiven for thinking that Twitter is taking over in this information age. Every TV show has a hashtag. Every news item has one too. Every actor, columnist, sports star, musician and celebrity freely offers up their Twitter handle and invites you to follow them.But if you're not careful, Twitter can be all-consuming. Follow too many people and you'll never get anything else done as you sift through the quips, quizzes and calls for charity support.Oh, and you'll run the risk of ending up believing anything and everything you read, too.One place where you can visit for a quick sense check of what's in your timeline is the admirable istwitterwrong.tumblr.com Here they dispel the rumours and debunk the myths that seem to surface so quickly these days.Within minutes it seems a joke can be taken out of context and reported as gospel on the six o'clock news. Here you can filter the facts from the fiction.

 

Thursday 6/9/12 -photoshoptroll.com

 

At photoshoptroll.com our artistic hero plays with people's pixels in the most mischievous ways.He's even set up a spoof site to draw people in, and once they've submitted a photo for some "free Photoshop work", all hell tends to break loose.This really is a joy to read through, particularly if you've ever had to do any work for an overly demanding client or somebody who just doesn't get how hard it can be to do clever things with digital pictures.The skills on display are impressive too, as is the attention to every possible potential comic detail, especially when you considering he's doing all the work strictly for fun. Be aware though, some of the comments he receives can be a little colourful!Photoshop Troll, we salute you.

 

littlebits.cc

 

Ooh, we do like this.You'll know we like things like Lego and Meccano, obviously, but take the simple idea of little blocks snapping together to make bigger, more complex things into the 21st Century and you have littlebits.ccThese are small electronic modules that snap together with magnets and once you start putting them together, you can make some pretty amazing things.These go way beyond just being cool toys, though. This is a brilliant hands-on way to get inquisitive minds of all ages interested in science and electronics.Bought in kits, this open source wonderland provides almost infinite possibilities with the components divided into four simple categories: power, input, output and wire.Luckily you can download wiring diagrams that other people have devised, so you can start building straight away. This site is also where you'll find the thriving community space, where fans swap tips, tutorials and ideas. We love these little things and we also reckon this could be a shoo-in for most popular request to the jolly fat man in the red suit in a few months' time.

 

lookingtocook.co.uk

 

Stop what you're doing and grab a pen and piece of paper. We have found something wondrous. Something almost mythical. Something that will change your life forever.You will need: some hazelnuts, some chocolate, some condensed milk, and some hot, full fat milk. For we are going to make … (drum roll) … homemade Nutella. With just these simple ingredients, and some very basic culinary skills we can make the magic happen in our very own kitchens.Some of you will be scribbling furiously as we impart these secret ingredients. Others might be thinking "oh, if only I could cook".Well, if you're in this second group, lookingtocook.co.uk could be just what you need. It's a brilliant way to find a local cookery course that will help you brush up your kitchen skills, no matter level you're cooking at.

 

childrenseyesonearth.org

 

Oh to be 16 again. With the benefit of hindsight, we could all make some radical changes to the way our lives have turned out.We'd all make more of those opportunities when they came up, wouldn't we? We'd take every chance to do something different and embrace it, rather than just shrugging, grunting and going back to listening to The Smiths on our Sony Walkmans.This is just such an opportunity for anybody under 16 who knows how to handle a camera.At childrenseyesonearth.org the next generation of super snappers can enter a simply amazing competition set up by Reza, a National Geographic photographer. Working with IDEA (International Dialogue for Environmental Action), with the support of National Geographic and the World Photography Organisation, this project has set out to inspire young people to take a different view of the world around them and hopefully inspire a generation to make some changes that will benefit us all.The themes for the photographic competition are I Love Nature and I Fear Pollution, and the winners will bag a load of top-end camera gear, as well as get to work with Reza on location too.A once in a lifetime chance for a wannabe photographer and a truly worthwhile project to get behind.

 

Geograph.org.uk

 

This interesting and rather addictive site, which aims to assemble a photographic archive of the whole of the UK, comprises of photos submitted entirely by site visitors.The nation is broken down into square kilometre grids and the first photo submitted to represent each grid is known as a geograph. It's an interesting and at times eye opening view of the UK and the site now boasts over 3 million images of local landmarks submitted by 11,500 photographers.

 

www.paralympics.org.uk

 

With record ticket sales for the Paralympics, underway now in London, it's clear that we're all getting into sport in a big way. Thanks to the internet though, you don't need to have tickets for the games to keep up with all the action live. Just head to paralympics.org.uk , the official site of the games that promises over 700 hours of live coverage over 5 channels. There's even some clever technology at play that syncs athlete's bios and live scores into the player windows.

 

thesocialradio.com

 

Our website of the day allows you to download a free app for the iphone or android devices which then turns your twitter timeline into speech! You can choose a playlist on your mobile device from your own music library and then a slightly robotic sounding voice read your twitter timeline to you. Ideal if you just have to stay up to date while at the gym or in the car. Just make sure you turn off the updates when you're finished with the app, or else you might treat those within earshot to more information than they need!

 

thinkdraw.com

 

If you’re feeling a little artistic today, and you want to get your creative juices flowing, have a look at the artistic community at thinkdraw.com

 

Here you can drop pre-made shapes onto an online drawing board so it’s a great site for younger web users too. Each board has a theme, like flowers, fruit animals and the like that you use to build your masterpiece. You can do as much or as little with these pre-determined shapes, but where the site really comes into its own is when you see some of the amazing artworks created with categories that you wouldn’t expect! It’s hard to explain, so probably best of you just head to the page for a look now – thinkdraw.com

 

eatwithalocal.com

 

You can get a real taste for travel with our website today: eatwithalocal.com

 

Be a traveler not a tourist with this site which allows you to not just visit another country, but get a warm welcome from the people who live there. Working on the principal of make a meal, make a friend, you can register to invite a traveler to your home to share a meal with you and your family. And, of course, if you’re travelling abroad, you can have the same courtesy extended to you.

 

quizlet.com

 

Following on from yesterdays website of the day that allowed you to learn a foreign language with a social aspect, today we’ve got a site that claims to be “The best way to study languages, vocabulary, or just about anything”!

 

Have a look at quizlet.com. Quizlet is the largest flash cards and study games website with over 11 million free sets of flashcards covering every possible subject. It's one of the best place to play educational games, memorize vocabulary and study online. Whether you’re looking to study for something in particular or just wanting a mental workout, this could be the site for you.

 

http://kids.nationalgeographic.com

 

Our website today is one for the younger websurfer, it's kids.nationalgeographic.com The content is laid out clearly in a bright and appealing way so that your kids can learn about people, places and animals through videos, photos, illustrations and text.

 

There are fun educational games to be played, and projects and activities to be done away from the computer.

 

Allrecipes.com

 

Following on from yesterday's site all about baking, today we're looking at another foody page online.

 

Allrecipes.com is constantly evolving with featured recipes and seasonal dishes displayed on the opening page The design of this website is really welcoming, and very easy to navigate. You can search for a particular dish using the search box at the top, or browse through the collections using the menus.

 

All recipes are clearly explained with a picture to illustrate what the end product should look like before you tuck in. Always handy if, like me, your culinary skills leave a lot to be desired!

 

Pinterest.com

 

There’s yet another new kid on the block as far as social media and networking is concerned – pinterest.com

 

This is an image based social network and discovery application that asks users to create ‘boards’ around a particular interest and then post links and images relating to that interest to create a collaborative mood board of interesting content. This site crossed the 10 million user mark faster than any other site in history so it seems to be starting well!

 

You can upload to your boards using the browser bookmarklet ‘pins’ so you can add content as you surf and of course there’s the obligatory iPhone app too.

 

The site is currently in invitation only Beta but your user name and password should only take a day or two to come through.

 

Wineanswers.com

 

I'm not a wine buff but for those want to know their chiantis from their cabernets, this website is a must.

 

Wineanswers.com helps even the most uneducated wine lover decide what to buy. It is full of really useful information, including how wine is priced and even when it is appropriate to return a bottle to the shop.

 

But better still, the wine and food pairing guide is great. Simply decide what kind of food you are serving and this site will tell you what will go with it. And if you don't like to be dictated to, you can decide for yourself using their simple tips.

 

If you are feeling up for something a bit more fun, you can even take the personality quiz which determines which wines you might like.

 

whathappenedinmybirthyear.com

 

Today's website was suggested by Pauline. If you love Hits & Headlines, then you'll relish the retro facts and figures of whathappenedinmybirthyear.com

 

The site really is the essence of minimalism. Just type in the year you were born and sit back as the broswer takes you back in time. The screen will go black while the page loads up, so don't worry about that. Then just relax at the screen is filled with scrolling text and images from the year you typed in.

 

Simple and informative!

 

Shipfinder.co

 

Time to geek out mariner style with our website of the day. shipfinder.co comes from the same people who brought us Planefinder. It tracks and displays shipping data in Google Maps and allows you to zoom in to see individual vessels and get information about them. You can find out where each ship is going and what it’s business is.

 

I’m struggling to find any realworld applications that might excuse you wasting…ahem… spending time with this site when you should be working. But it turns out that it’s strangely addictive. You can play around with the various controls the site offers and dream of a life lived on the High Seas.

 

Bookmooch.com

 

Maybe you've heard of BookCrossing, the website which encourages you to leave books lying about for other people to read?Well, now there's the online equivalent to BookCrossing at BookMooch.com Books are swapped and given away through the medium of the internet.

 

To ensure people don't abuse the process, the site uses a points system, which is fully explained on the About section of the site.

 

You earn and spend points by offering and taking books, and there is even the option to give your points to a charity so that they can buy the books they want for their own particular cause.

 

You can browse the books by keyword, but you will need to register to request a mooch, that is ask for the book to be sent to you.At this point you are put in touch with the person offering the book, and it is up to them to cover the postage, the idea being that you will send a book out yourself and pay the postage in return.

 

watzatsong.com

 

Do you ever get a song stuck in your head - going round and round, and you can't quite put your finger on what it was? Or perhaps you have heard a snippet of something on a website and want to hear more?

 

Watzatsong.com as the name suggests is all about putting names and artists to the tunes that are flying around in our heads.

 

Once registered, just record a snip of the song that has you stumped (whether you choose to sing it yourself or record it from wherever you heard it, the choice is yours) and wait for the suggestions to come rolling in.

 

Drivingethanol.org

 

If you're worried about climate change, but can't imagine life without your car, then maybe you should be thinking about different types of fuel? Such as ethanol - a renewable fuel made from organic material like corn.

 

And it's surprising just how many vehicles are already running on ethanol... for example did you know the IndyCar series in America runs on ethanol? Me neither - but you can find out more at drivingethanol.com.

 

This website's simply packed full of enlightening facts about ethanol as a fuel. Use the Ethanol Facts link at the top to get you started - and when you are ready to find out more about switching your fuel consumption then the Ethanol in Vehicles link is situated right beside it.

 

Whatever you do though, remember there's no need to panic buy!

 

fwfr.com

 

with the average attention span of modern man getting shorter and shorter, what could be more fitting than fwfr.com - which stands for Four Word Film Review.

 

Yep, it's a film review in just four words. But how can you possibly review a film properly in just four words? Well the answer is you can't, not really.

 

But what you can do is have a little fun. From the opening page it all becomes quite clear - users of the site are invited to submit their own four-word review, and you can browse through the entries in a number of ways.

 

Do be aware this is unmoderated user-generated content though, and it seems that some people just cannot help trying to spoil the party. For the most part though the entries are fun and often quite clever.

 

typorganism.com

 

Who do you think is heavier? Ian or Vanessa.

 

If you want to find out you can pop along to typorganism.com.

 

The answer of course, is Vanessa... but only because she has more letters in her name!

 

Confused? This website is full of quirky little applications just like the one which allows you to discover the comparative weight of certain words based on the letters they contain.

 

 

Why? Who knows? But it is kind of fun.

 

Back at the homepage, which I love the design of, you can access all the other toys.It is probably best just to discover them yourself as not many of them really make sense, but you'll kill a few minutes going through them all, I can guarantee that!

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Diseno-art.com

 

Billing itself as an online encyclopaedia of interesting vehicles, Diseno-art is a must-visit site for fans of all things vehicular. This site ignores average everyday vehicles and focuses on innovative and interesting machines.

 

The homepage features top notch news, which is regularly updated with photos and articles about the world's most exotic vehicles. But the site really comes into its own when you stray away from the pictures of the latest super cars and start investigating the weirder vehicles stored in the archive.

 

Broken down into sections focusing on cars, boats and aircraft, a quick click on any of these groups reveals hundreds of pages detailing exotic vehicles, old and new.

 

The concept car and strange vehicle sections are of particular interest. Here you will find photos and stats about some of the weirdest modes of transport ever conceived. How about the land-walker exoskeleton, or the dolphin-shaped speed boat?

 

Scratch.mit.edu

 

If you would like to animate your own cartoons, write your own video games or even create interactive artworks, but can't be bothered with all of that complicated coding business we might have just the site for you.

 

Scratch is the brainchild of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) media lab. It's a set of tools designed to be used by people without computer programming skills - which I think is most of us!

 

It makes use of a graphical interface which allows you to build a sequence with building blocks. These are dragged, dropped then linked together, a little bit like multimedia Lego.

 

Images can be selected from an existing library or imported from your hard drive.

 

Once imported, a number of action blocks can be assigned to the image. These blocks are assigned commands like "move" or "play drum", and the blocks can then simply be stacked together to create an animation.

 

Once your masterpiece is complete it can be uploaded to the Scratch site for other users to check out.

 

While the site is primarily aimed at younger users, it is still a lot of fun for grown-ups with a creative streak.

 

CoolCapitals.com

 

On this site there are travel guides, reviews and advice about travelling to five European cities: Amsterdam, Antwerp in Belgium, Valencia in Spain, Vienna and Zurich.

 

The site has a funky user interface and cute pixel art animated maps - it is a real shame the content is limited to just five cities. But that being said, if you're planning a European city break to any of these 5 cities, you'll love this site!

 

The five cities covered are reported in great detail, with maps, photos, restaurant and entertainment guides, and some videos.

 

 

wordsmith.org

 

 

Did you know that parliament is an anagram of partial men? Or, Clint Eastwood an anagram of Old West Action?

 

We’ve had a lot of fun putting in our names into the Internet Anagram Solver… and just so you know Darren Stenhouse works out as Underneath Roses … Barry Snedden is Brandy Sender !

 

However the website of the day wordsmith.org is more than just a bit of anagram fun. There is the Word of the day too … which is perhaps more educational than anything else. You can also check out lots of book chat.

 

So, if you want to increase your vocabulary or simply giggle at the weird words that come out of the Internet Anagram Solver check out, wordsmith.org

 

dontclick.it

 

 

“Within this interface you won’t find any buttons, instead you navigate the contents in a different way …” This is the opening line on the front page of our website of the day … dontclick.it

 

It's perhaps the most unusual website I have ever been on, even after playing on the site … (reviewing the site) … for a while… I am still not sure what it’s all about (but it is fun !)

 

Simply put dontclick.it … is a bit tricky, but, after a while you will see why mouse buttons are no longer required.

 

Can you survive on the net without clicking ? … Make your final click (for a while) at dontclick.it

 

JustBeamIt.com

 

 

Sharing files over internet can be done through lots of different websites.

 

The disadvantage with these services is the file has to be uploaded and then download from a server which wastes a lot of bandwidth and the security of data is lost.

 

JustBeamIt.com is a website where your file (of any size) will not be uploaded to a server … your file will be downloaded by the other user directly from your PC. This saves a lot of bandwidth and your confidential data is not kept on somebody elses server.

 

You just have to drag and drop your file into your browswer, immediately after drag n drop a URL is generated which you can share with as many users as you like and they can easily download it.

 

Unlike other services there is no limit on file size. So the next time you need to share a large file, don’t email it, justbeamit – with justbeamit.com

 

TopTenReviews.com

 

TopTenReviews.com gives you the information you need to make a smart, informed purchases.

 

From smartphones to credit card processing software, you’ll find in depth reviews using side-by-side comparison charts, news, articles, and videos to simplify the buying process for potential customers.

 

If you’re like me, you’ll end up seeing things that you didn’t know existed and will probably now want … as they review the latest in gadgets too.The website was set up in 2003 and now attracts over 7 million visitors a month.

 

TopTenReviews.com could be viewed as one big advert – but – there is very little in the way of on screen advertising and popups, so well worth checking out.

 

LovePork.co.uk

 

 

Did you know that it's Bacon Connoisseurs Week ?

 

The website lovepork.co.uk believe that whether it is maple cured or oak smoked, bacon is a British Tradition and a true national treasure.

 

With some of the finest bacon in the country highlighted on the website, lovepork.co.uk has a mission to bring you the best tips and recipes out there.

 

The once humble rasher can turn any meal into an occasion to savour.

 

Lovepork.co.uk is great website for any foody, but, especially for those that love a bacon butty !

 

Stroome.com

 

One of the things that the web is great for is connecting people who may be thousands of miles apart. It’s also great for friends or relatives who may be miles apart but who might want to work together on a project. If you’ve got videos, audio or photos that you want to collaborate on, then have a look at stroome.com This site offers cloud based computing and gives you the tools to upload your own content or play about with existing content that you can pull down and work on.

 

While the site offers drag and drop functionality for transitions and editing, there’s no doubt that if you’re a more advanced user there are better platforms out there that might suit you better. But if you just want to play around and find your feet with video and picture editing, stroome.com is a pretty great place to start.

 

Zapaday.com

 

I think we can pretty much take claims of being able to see in to the future with a pinch of salt, so forget the crystal ball and have a look at zapaday.com to see if this site can do a better job of predicting the future.

 

Zapaday.com is a public calendar that lets you see the future with day by day events, stories, news, facts and trivia. The site relies on an army of bots (much less scary and sci-fi than it sounds!) which scour the internet looking at government and news sites looking for any mention of future events. Then the sites editors organise it all and put it into calendars so you can see what’s likely to be making the news in the future. There’s even an app for your iPhone if you want to see the future on the move.

 

Hunkinsexperiments.com

 

Tim Hunkin has been a prolific artist over the years, and on hunkinsexperiments.com he presents his kooky collection of experiments for the world to enjoy.

 

Now these are not high tech experiments, as the name would suggest. They range from the sublime to the ridiculous, and include such topics as making orange peel fangs and shadow portraits.The charm is not so much the content, but the way it is delivered and if your young ones have inquiring minds they would probably enjoy doing some of the activities too.

 

Click 'About' at the top to learn more about Tim and his work. There are also links here to his other web pages, which are equally worth a visit if you like his cartooning style.

 

Humanjourney.us

 

These days we live in a high-speed, high-tech world and it’s all too easy to forget our roots. That’s where our website of the day comes in today. Head on over to humanjourney.us and get back to basics. The site maps out the human journey leading up to appearance of modern man around a hundred thousand years ago. The site is pretty basic – no videos, no bells or whistles – but the text is full of facts and figures and offers a fascinating insight into the evolution of cultures, diet, world view, language and much more.

 

If you’ve ever had a burning desire to find exactly where you came from, humanjourney.us might well be just the site you’re looking for!

 

Earthtv.com

 

EarthTV.com transmits streaming video feeds from 70 cameras across five continents, creating a window for visitors to travel the width and breadth of the world from the comfort of their own homes.

 

The quality of these feeds is exceptional, and unlike the usual fixed camera viewpoint, Earth TV can motion control each camera to capture the very best of the action.

 

Each destination feed is complimented with information and a few fascinating facts, maps and local weather reports - with a relaxing music track running throughout.

 

Anobii.com

 

If you’re a bit of a bookworm, but you’re lacking inspiration for your next purchase, why not check out anobii.com This is an online book club that uses social recommendations to help you find your way to your next novel. You can list books you’ve already read on your virtual bookshelf and share your thoughts with other booklovers and, in the process, get insights and recommendations. There are smart phone mobile apps too so you can take anobii.com with you wherever you go.

 

Psykopaint.com

 

Did you ever want to be a great artist, only to be hampered by the fact that you were really bad at drawing and far too lazy to learn how to be better? The good news is, with our website of the day, Psykopaint.com you can fill your artists soul with absolutely no skills!

 

One of the nicest things about our website today is that it’s not rocket science! You just visit psykopiant.com, choose a photo from your collection and get to work. You can paint with a variety of tools like brush, spraycan, ribbon or palette knife. The website does all the really clever stuff matching your paintings colour to the original photograph’s so you can concentrate on the fun of (pretending to be) a great artist! If you’re happy with the result you can even choose to have your finished artwork turned into a real painting! That isn’t free, but the site itself is, so get started today!

 

About.me

 

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogger, Wordpress, Flickr, YouTube, Foursquare…the list goes on and on and, if like lots of us do these days, you have multiple online usernames and presences, it can sometimes be tricky keeping track of which info to give out to which people. That’s where our website of the day comes in today – about.me

 

Think of about.me as your online business card; a single landing point for all of your points of contact and one that’s easy to remember. This site doesn’t come with bells and whistles – it does just what it says on the tin and no more – but it where it really scores in the usability stakes is how simple it is. Set up your own page and you’re off and running. From now on, you’ll only ever have to remember one web address when you’re passing on your online information to the people you meet.

 

 

TheMovieSpoiler.com

 

If you’ve chuckled at the advert on TV recently where someone gives away the ending of a film, you might well enjoy our website of the day – themoviespoiler.comThe Movie Spoiler gives you brief synopses for a bunch of recent Hollywood releases. The home page has the most recent additions, and there are dozens more to explore in the archive. If you’ve got a mean streak, this site could be right up your street, but where it really comes into its own is if, like me, you’ve walked out the cinema and not quite understood what happened on the big screen!

 

And of course you can always just read the first few paragraphs of the summary to see whether a particular movie is likely to appeal before you see it. There are even a few official movie trailers on some of the pages so you can try before you buy!

 

Woophy.com

 

Woophy.com is an intriguing project created by a bunch of people who are mad about photography. The aim of Woophy, which stands for "World of photography", is to create a collective work of art using pictures taken and posted from all over the world.

 

On the opening page you see a map, and each of the little pins on that map represents a photo. If you hover your mouse pointer over a pin, a small thumbnail pops-up, which you can click to see the photos from that area in the right-hand-side bar. The range of images is amazing. Some are people, some just scenery from the area. When you are finished browsing, you can even add your own photos. You’ll need to register to do that, but once you’ve activated your account it’s all plain sailing.

 

Passportstamp.com

 

Today's website allows users to create a personalised map of their travels across the globe, and then discuss their exploits with other web users who have been clocking up the air miles. To get started, you do need to register, but registration is free and pretty straightforward.

 

Once you’ve logged on to the site, you can start to enter the countries around the world you have visited. A map of the globe highlighting your travels will appear and it is instantly updated with every new entry. Apart from showing off how well travelled you are, this map feature is really a jumping off point for the other main feature of the site - the lively travel forums. Here you’ll find discussions ranging from: "What's the worst country in the world you've visited?" to useful hotel and travel tips. Chart your travels today, online at Passportstamp.com

 

Fungooms.com

 

When you think about online gaming, maybe you think about grumpy teenagers spending hour after hour shut in their room staring at a screen playing massive online role playing games. But there’s more to online games that World of Warcraft and there are games to suit every age group. Today’s website is one for the little ones in your house.

 

Fungooms.com is a mouse only interactive play space aimed at pre-school children. By interacting with the bright and straightforward games on this site, all set to soothing ambient music, your little ones will soon master the basics of mouse control in a fun and safe environment. By the time they get to school, your children might well be better at using technology than their teachers!

 

Ifttt.com

 

You know me, I’m always keen to play with new online toys that help me work smarter not harder. Our website of the day is one of those sites that can help you make the internet work for you.

 

Ifttt.com might not trip of the tongue, but once you realise what it stands for, it all becomes much clearer. Ifttt means ‘if this, then that’ and it almost does what it says on the tin. The webpage itself explains what the site can do for you in simple terms, but in a nutshell, it means if there is one action, then do another action. The settings and options are virtually limitless, and you’ll find your own way to make the best use of the site, but as an example, you could create a rule that says ‘if I post a status update to facebook, then post the same update to twitter’ or ‘if I check in somewhere with foursquare, then save a copy of that to my evernote notebook’.

 

Have a play and put the internet to work for you with ifttt.com

 

Pixable.com

 

If you’ve got a habit of keeping up to date with what your friends and family are doing on social networks by trawling through their photos, you’ll know the process can get a little tedious. Luckily, that’s where our website of the day comes in today. Point your browsers at pixable.com

 

What this site does is extract all the photos that your contacts have posted on Facebook, Twitter and more and wraps them up in a simple but effective interface so you can browse them all in one place. You can even get the apps for iPhone and iPad if you want to take your contacts images on the go with you. Oh, and best of all, it’s free!

 

Pen.io

 

If you’ve always wanted to build an online presence by having your very own website, but you don’t have the time or inclination to learn HTML, maybe pen.io is exactly what you’re looking for!

 

This service wins hands down in terms of ease of use; there’s no sign up process and the construction is pretty much drag and drop simplicity. Just give your site a name and you’re off and running. As there’s no sign up, you can use the site completely anonymously so you’ll never have to share more than you’re happy to with the rest of the web. The service is quite new so there may be the few odd teething bugs, but the developers are promising more gadgets and gizmos as the site’s popularity grows.

 

Twit.tv

 

Twit.tv, which stands for ‘This Week in Tech.tv’, is the definitive destination for technology addicts.

 

Here you’ll find arguably one of the best, most entertaining podcasts on the subject of technology. In itself, that’s no mean feat! Let's face it, technology news doesn't exactly have the reputation of being good material for comedy.

 

It's a spin off from the now defunct TechTV and features the same hosts that made that channel such a cult hit. You can download the podcast for free or just listen to it online on the website.

 

 

If you click the Live tab you experience these super geeks in their natural habitat watching the shows being recorded.

 

Altogether a well thought out and entertaining variety of shows - check it out at Twit.tv

 

 

 

 

 

This global television portal allows you to tune in to certain channels from around the world and watch TV through your web browser.

 

You can access the content by genre, or look up programmes from a particular region and country.

 

The service is free as it uses an ad based financial model, so you don't even need to create an account to start watching.

 

You can also embed each channel in your website and blog, or watch it on your mobile phone at Viewmy.tv

 

Soundjunction.org

 

SoundJunction.org is an extremely comprehensive site dedicated to all things musical. If you want to find out about different styles of music from rock to jazz, or if you are thinking about taking up an instrument, it is all here.

 

There is a heavy bias towards education, which tends to mean each topic is discussed in exhaustive detail. For example, navigate through the "How music works" section and you will find articles, photos and the history of specific musical instruments. There are even expert tips on how to play instruments, in some cases there are video clips demonstrating the instruments in use.

 

But if you really want to get your hands dirty, head back to the main menu and click on the "Composer" section, which contains a simple piece of music-editing software. It is loaded with a selection of pre-recorded samples. These can be dragged and dropped onto a timeline, eventually building together to make a finished track. While it might not be up to professional standards, it is free, and this simple application allows the novice to grasp the basics of digital composing.

 

A great site for anybody thinking about taking up an instrument or if you just want to know the difference between a violin and a viola.

 

Visualize.me

 

These days more and more of us are spending time online to take advantage of social and professional media sites. Probably the best known professional social media site is Linkedin, and it’s this site that is the starting point for visualize.me

 

Visualize.me takes your CV as you’ve listed it on Linkedin and turns the information into an infographic that you can share with whoever you like. Pictures speak a thousand words and when you’re trying to grab the attention of prospective employers in such an overcrowded market, this could be the hook that makes you stand out from the crowd.

 

Floorplanner.com

 

Are you about to rearrange your living room this weekend, but aren't sure what the outcome might look like? After all, you could waste hours only to find that your couch is too big for where you want to put it!

 

That's where floorplanner.com comes in. Its a free to use floorplanner that runs right in your browser so there's no software to buy or install. With simple drag and drop icons you can easily make accurate plans in minutes that are all to scale. There are online tutorials so you'll be up and running in no time so there's no excuse for putting off the big home revamp.

 

 

Stellarium.org

 

 

If you were listening to Kingdom Breakfast with Ian and Vanessa recently, you’ll know that Ian seems to have become a little bit obsessed with the night sky; spurred on no doubt by the recent Stargazing Live shows. Today’s website may go some way to helping him with his heavenly obsession. Point your web browsers at stellarium.org and download the free and open source planetarium direct to your desktop. Available for Windows, Mac and Linux, the planetarium shows the sky in real time from any location you specify. Bear in the mind only the sky is accurate though, the landscape is just a representation. Still, you’ll be able to spend hours and hours getting lost in all the stellar features available for free at stellarium.org

 

Quora.com

 

If you’ve got a question that you’re desperate to know the answer to but don’t have time to trawl through the internet, then maybe quora.com is the site that you’ve been looking for. It claims to be able to connect you to everything you want to know about… in itself, a bold claim!

 

All the content is user generated, in the same way Wikipedia is, but what makes Quora different is that there’s plenty of scope for users to add their own commentary as well as straight forward data. The integration with social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter is a nice idea and there’s already a steadily growing community helping to build the content.

 

You do need to register to use the site, but registration is free and it easy to link Twitter and Facebook to this site and in doing so Quora claims it’ll help you see only the information you care about. How it does this is beyond me, but it’s worth a look if you’ve got an enquiring mind!

 

 

Tweepsmap.com

 

If you’re a fan of social media, you’ll know that sometimes you’re just as likely to interact with someone on the other side of the world as the other side of the county! But how can you work out where your Twitter followers are based without laboriously checking out all of their profiles? I’m glad you asked! That’s where our website of the day comes in… its tweepsmap.com

 

Just authorise your Twitter account to let tweetsmap access your followers and you’ll quickly end up with a visual representation of where your followers are based. You can also automatically tweet the result too if you’re so inclined.

 

Just so you know, 48% of my followers are from the UK,28% from the USA & 12% from Fife.

 

 

Puresolo.com

 

Hands up if you’ve ever watched the audition stages for X Factor and thought ‘I can do that’? If you’re tired of singing into your hairbrush in your bedroom have a look at puresolo.com

 

PureSolo is an online music recording platform with over 24,000 studio quality backing tracks with lyrics and sheet music for singers and instrumentalists. And its got a social twist too with fellow users voting you up the chart, if you make the grade of course!

 

I should say, its not a site purely for singers. If you play an instrument, there’s a good chance you’ll be able to showcase your talents to the rest of the web here too.

 

If you’re feeling very brave you can add video too… but be warned, there is some very stiff competition on there for you.

 

Let your talent shine on our website of the day, click puresolo.com now!