Commonly all book lovers sites revolve around a community. An online ‘town square’ meet-up to see what others are reading and why they reading it. If you club together a few likeminded book lovers, you are bound to come across a lot of books.

BookRix is just such a book lovers website, a community platform where you can read, rate and rant away on books. BookRix is also a place where new authors can present their own works. In that respect BookRix acts like an online publishing house for free via the medium of the browser.

BookRix calls itself a portal on books. Let’s find our way in with a simple registration and unwrap what the site has in store for a book lover and a hopeful author.

Something seems to be always happening at BookRix. Immediately after my log-in, I am greeted with the message as depicted below.

Wow, a contest! Nice, but I guess as I am trying to still find my feet. Let me just walk around a bit and read some of the books that are available around here. The collection is about 16,000+ strong and includes novels, poetry, children’s books, essays etc. all free to read.

The Personal Homepage is usually the starting point for all activities on BookRix. We have Boxes with different content like BookRix News, Your Favorite Categories, Book Recommendations, New Books etc, which are all snapshots of everything we do in BookRix.

The Books overview page is a place to search for all that’s there in BookRix’s collection. A search or an advanced search will throw up the book we want. BookRix also has a small collection of audio books and foreign language titles.

The Community is the place to hang out and discover other readers and authors. We can interact directly with other readers (i.e. both users and authors) or join Groups like the one called ‘Give vampires a chance’…which reads and discusses books on vampires! Or, if we don’t want anything that far out, we can always start our own group.

Then again, we can pass the time playing a round of literary quiz that’s on offer. BookRix also has a fledgling discussion Forum that affords another place to connect to the writers and readers network.

My BookRix is the operations room. Set up your profile and build a network by inviting friends. There’s also a little pin board that we can use as a post-it peg. The pin board notice goes out to all our friends on the network.

The My Books section is an important place for an aspiring author on BookRix. Though this is a place to manage our book lists (those that are authored by us), this section also has the tools that allow us to upload our raw content and make a book out of it.

The BookRix Upload tool has a few processes that make it easy to transfer the basic PDF, DOC, ODT or any other file type and add some defining information like Title, Sub Title, Author, Page Format for the preset BookRix template etc. A press on Save sends the book through the processing machine. We get a preview of our work in the slick BookRix Reader and the book gets saved in our account. A similar process allows us to upload audio podcasts and illustrated books too.

Promote your book through the BookRix interface. BookRix hosts the authored book, but we the authors need to tom-tom it using good old fashioned email promotion or through web links. The advantage of a community can be realized for a shot of viral promotion.

The word has gone out. People are queuing for your signature and you are the toast of the literati. Not quite. Book authoring and publishing it (successfully) is a backbreaking and fortune crushing business. Just ask some of the famous authors whose books have been rejected thousands of times. So is the BookRix book lovers website worth it?

Yes definitely because it lets you test the waters for free. The book reading community comments and gives your work an onceover. Productive appraisal is a vital ingredient towards the process of becoming a better writer. There are lots of book communities and online reading web apps out there, but BookRix is a no risk way of giving your penmanship a wider audience.

If you are a book lover, ink a few comments on BookRix.  Or take a look at three other alternatives profiled by Bakari.

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• The 8 Best Book Review Sites (18)
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• 3 Inspiring Virtual Libraries for Avid Readers & Book Lovers (9)
• Track Your Reading and Catalogue Books with BookTomb [Win] (13)

The best part about each of these sites is they provide you a way to create virtual libraries, sharing with others what you have read, what you’re presently reading, and what you would like to read. Best of all, all these sites have free sign-up options with mostly unobtrusive advertising.

LibraryThing

Perhaps the site that set the tone for book sharing and virtual libraries is LibraryThing. Touted as the “world’s largest book club,” it has well over 900,000 members and over 45 million books cataloged. LibraryThing allows you to use a tagging system to your organize your books. Previewing its Zeitgeist Overview Page, you can find actual authors who are members of the site. Many of them include their own virtual library for public viewing.

The member libraries can be viewed not only by titles but also by book covers, which is the best way to browse. The site includes a large assortment of literary groups and discussion threads, such as Science Fiction Fans, Young Adult Lit, Historical Fiction, and “Books that made me think.”

Adding books to your library page is as simple as typing in a book’s title, ISBN or name of the author. When you select a book to add, all the pertinent information about the book is included for you. If you’re a serious about maintaining your virtual library, you’ll want to keyword or tag your books so they can be grouped together by genre, year or month read, and any identity you want to give them. You can also rate, review, and make recommendations to other members.

Of the three sites introduced here, LibraryThing is the only one that lets you create RSS feeds for groups. I find this especially helpful for keeping up threaded discussions, because it means you don’t have to visit the site in order to view discussion threads, or be bothered with daily emails about updated discussions.

A free membership to the site allows you to catalogue 200 books for free, but the best option is to pay $25 for a lifetime membership.

Shelfari

Shelfari is a lot like LibraryThing but a bit more commercially designed, with a slightly easier to use interface. It also claims to be the largest social networking site for readers.

You build your virtual library the same way you do on LibraryThing. You can search for and add books, and you can go through the collections of other members and build off their list. It has a Facebook style to it whereby you can connect with your friends to see what books they’re reading. You can also rate, tag, and write reviews about books. Your home virtual library pages keep you abreast of what your friends are reading and the threaded discussions of groups you’re a member of.

Membership is totally free on Shelfari and the advertising is pretty unobtrusive.

Goodreads

The newest literary social site on the block is Goodreads. It includes all the features discussed above, and it too claims it “is the largest social network for readers in the world.”

There’s not much unique to Goodreads, but of the three literary sites I would say this one the most minimalist in design and approach. The site, unlike the other two, allows you to share your reviews on your FB page.

If you’re a literary writer, there’s also a place to share your own poems, short stories, and essays. This section can also be used to post photos of your home library collection.

Finally, Goodreads’s other features include a section of videos uploaded to author’s profiles, a way to swap books, and a searchable section for upcoming local to international book and writing related events.

Goodreads membership is free and ad-based.

I’m a member of all three of these sites with virtual libraries, but I can’t honestly recommend one over the other. To get the most out of any one of them simply means being active on a regular basis, building your friends list and participating in useful discussions.

If you’re a member of one of these sites, let me know what your experience has been as an active member. Has it made a difference in your reading habits?

Image credit: Let Ideas Compete

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All of my files come from different locations or methods of ripping, so they are all different. One day, I will have some time on my hands (one day I hope!). With that time, I would fix up and normalize my MP3 collection – why, what would you do with that free time?

So I downloaded an application from Sourceforge called MP3 Diags – a one-stop shop to analyzing and fixing up your MP3 music tracks. Check out the application here. It is a 6.4MB installer which sets up pretty quickly.

Once you get the application installed you will see this screen:

Navigate to where your music is stored. You can have the application create backups of the files it is modifying in a different directory with the backup option. You can point the program to a different settings file as well from this screen.

I selected my folder and hit the OK button. I am a “fly by the seat of my pants” kind of guy so I didn’t opt for a backup. I would recommend that you do opt for a backup – just to be safe.

You will see MP3 Diags running through your files one at a time like so:

When it is complete, you will see all your music tracks listed and the problems each track contains:

On the right hand side, is a series of check marks denoting issues like so:

Checking out the issue, it turns out it is that the MP3 does not have a APIC frame to hold it’s image. Lots of my MP3s suffer from this issue and others. By highlighting a music track, you can see all of the associated issues.

Now even though the application lets you fix the problems, it is by no way automatic. You have to use the buttons at the top of the screen to fix your problems.

Each of those buttons has a function which I will go through here but beforehand, remember the application is in beta so you should run a backup. Also if you simply left-click, all the visible files get processed. However, it is possible to process only the selected files. To do that, either keep SHIFT pressed down while clicking or use the right button, as described in its user guide.

The first button has lots of functionality as you can see below. Choose one and run with it:

The buttons labeled 1 through 4 each have custom tasks associated with them that you can see by mouse hovering them. I did this for the first option below:

Then I ran it:

I hit ‘Yes’ and it did it’s thing. It worked awesome, not as quick as I might have liked but this baby really does work. And it can fix any issues with your music files.

Next up, Normalization:
Normalization needs to be run in album mode on a single album. Or you will see this error:

Next up, tags – and the MP3 Diags tag editor. Hit the Tag button and off you go:

This is a console for editing and downloading tags. It has multiple sites to grab your tags from.

All in all, this a really comprehensive MP3 fixer for any music lover who really wants full control over their files. What do you use for fixing up your music files or their tags? Let us know in the comments!

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As more and more libraries and museums take their collections online, the less people need to actually visit those places.  This is both good and bad.   Good because more and more people have access to collections they wouldn’t normally be able to see.   But bad because, as I said, it removes the need to actually go there in person if you can, and see the items for yourself.   Falling attendance means falling revenue which means these places will ultimately be forced to close.  So it’s a bit of a catch-22 digitising these amazing collections.

Here are some places which have taken either all or most of their collections and papers online for all to see – and it’s all completely free to view on your screen.

Library Of Congress

As well as being able to search their library for a particular book title, you can also view their Digital Collections.   This includes a wide variety of things including photographs, newspapers, legislative records from Congress, and map collections.   I am a big fan of old maps so the last section was particularly fascinating for me, especially the old military campaign maps from the Civil War (they can also be downloaded to your computer).

I also particularly enjoyed the Manuscript Reading Room, where you can view the private papers of Hannah Arendt, Sir Alexander Graham Bell,  Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and George Washington.   There are literally hundreds of thousands more documents by various other people, all meticulously scanned online with foreign language documents accompanied with translations.   You can literally spend hours on this site and still not get through a small fraction of what the LOC offers.

Smithsonian Institute

The Smithsonian actually consists of 19 museums, 9 research centers, and the National Zoo.   So it is a huge institution, covering so many diverse subjects and this is reflected on their website.

Check out their art and design section with scans of tens of thousands of images which are searchable.   You can also view their History & Culture section, Science & Technology and even view a bug photo collection in their Museum of Natural History (not for the squeamish!)

British Museum

The British Museum is also a world-renowned place which utilises the internet to its full advantage.

You can search over 4,000 items in the Museum’s collection, including Chinese Jade and Sacred Objects from the Pacific.   Explore ancient cultures such as the Romans and Medieval Europe.   Gaze upon one of the Museum’s most prized objects, an Anglo-Saxon helmet.

The British Museum also embeds their own specially-made videos on the site including one on the Greek Parthenon (although there seems to be no way to embed the videos on your own site).  They even show you how to make a mummy (if a close relative dies and you feel so inclined to put them on display!)

British Library

One of the big players in the library/museum collection business and it’s no different with their online offerings.

This is an institution I have huge respect for as it houses some of history’s most important documents.   You can look at, and translate, the Magna Carta.  Using Shockwave Flash, you can “turn the pages” of some of the greatest books ever, including the Lindisfarne Gospels and the Lisbon Bible.   You can view and compare over 100 quartos by Shakespeare.  If that isn’t enough, you can listen to nearly 24,000 audio recordings and explore another 20,000.

Still not enough?   Then read and compare the Library’s two copies of the Gutenberg Bible.  Or read and compare the Library’s two editions of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales.

Hermitage

The Hermitage is in St Petersburg, Russia and consists of the following :

The main architectural ensemble of the Hermitage situated in the centre of St Petersburg consists of the Winter Palace, the former state residence of the Russian emperors, the buildings of the Small, Old (Great) and New Hermitages, the Hermitage Theatre and the Auxiliary House. The museum complex also includes the Menshikov Palace and the Eastern Wing of the General Staff building, the Staraya Derevnya Restoration and Storage Centre and the Museum of the Imperial Porcelain Factory.

As well as viewing a list of their current exhibitions, you can also browse countless other collections including paintings and drawings, archeological artefacts and costumes.

Louvre

Most well known as the home of the Mona Lisa, the Louvre in Paris has 30,000 works of art which are digitised and searchable on their website.

The best place to start is the Overview, which leads off into the various different sections of the gallery.  As well as listing the various departments, you can also see the latest news and latest acquisitions.

They even have pages devoted to Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code!

The one complaint I have is that their font is too small and so you have to increase the font size.  You can find out how to do that in Tina’s article.

National Library of Scotland

I am a little bit biased here, being Scottish myself, but I honestly believe that the National Library of Scotland has some fantastic exhibits worth looking at.   If you are ever in Edinburgh, I recommend a personal visit but for those unable to make it to Edinburgh, the NLS’s website has some fairly good digital collections.

See the last letter written by Mary Queen of Scots before her execution.  Turn the pages of a Gutenberg Bible.  View ancient maps of Scotland and zoom right in to get all the close details.   Read the entire First Edition of Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Kidnapped”

But I think one of the most serious downsides to the NLS site is that they don’t have scans of their extensive Robert Burns collection.   They only talk about it and refer you to book titles which they have in their library.   How can they have a Scottish digital collection and not talk about Mr Burns?   That’s sacrilege ah tell ya.

I’m sure there are many other libraries and museums online with unique and valuable digital collections but I have to stop this post somewhere!    I hope this article has given you a bit of insight into the treasures available for view online and if you know of any more, please do tell us about them in the comments.

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Since reading that, I have been addicted to reading and have amassed a huge collection of literary titles and some crap, unfortunately. I have so many books, I never know what I kept and what I tossed.

So when someone asks me if they may borrow the book I was talking about last week, my answer would be, “Yeah, if you can come and find it!”

Now, I stumbled upon this small portable application called BookTomb and it not only stores all your book loving data – it also has the ability to retrieve book covers, ISBN numbers, descriptions and a bunch more from Amazon, ISBNdb and BookThing. So entering your collection into should be a snap! Let’s see how easy it is to use BookTomb.

The portable application is 2.7MB and consists of the executable and a database file. You can put them on a thumb drive or virtually anywhere. Upon launching the program, I had to modify one setting in the tools/preferences menu to allow Amazon to communicate with my database. I will show you that as I go along.

On first launch you will see this:

Next thing you should do if you want the Amazon search to work, go to Tools. Then you will see this screen:

I changed the Amazon Access Method to “via bookTome” and I choose Amazon at the bottom for “Default description service provider”. Now you are ready to enter some books!

Click on Authors or any other link on the left so that you can see the Add New Book menu option again – then hit it.

I just filled in the Title and Author. I choose Stephen King’s The Cell that I read a while back. Then, I hit the Import from Amazon button at the bottom and it brought me to this page:

I selected my book, which was the second choice and I checked the boxes next to all of the fields. If you don’t want all the information simply leave the box next to that field unchecked. Then hit the Import book button on the bottom right.

Now all the fields you chose will show up when you highlight or open your book. You can hit View all books to see everything you have added to your database. Some of the other features I like about this program include the ability to mark a book as read, search by author or title, add books to your wish list and even track your reading.

The program keeps a history of everything you modify in a book from when you added it. So if you added a book as soon as you bought it and a week later you mark it as read, all of that is recorded. You can see this by selecting a book and then choosing history like so:

This is an awesome portable application for any book aficionado! Do you have another way to catalogue your book collection?

Have you searched our directory? We have a lot of interesting posts regarding books and reading. If you can’t decide on which book to read next, let Stefan help you out by showing you the 8 best book review sites.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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• Easily share your collection, ratings, reviews with friends
• Look up your collection via your cell phone while shopping
• Compare online prices to get better deals
• List your collection in social networking sites like Facebook

With DVDSpot closing down last year, thousands of movie collectors seem to have been left in the lurch. Social sites for cinephiles such as Flixter and iHeartMovies do not offer a permanent offline solution for cataloging. With that in mind, here’s a look at websites that allow you to catalog your movie collection online, and also let you export your collection for offline backup.

GuruLib

Developed by two students in their spare time, this site allows you to catalog and share movies, books, music, and games. You can add items by searching, entering UPC/ISBN details, scanning barcodes, or importing in bulk via CSV/XML. You can choose privacy settings for your shelf, get automatic recommendations, and generate Genre, Actor, and Director clouds. You can track lent/borrowed items even with non-members, export your library, and upload documents. It supports adding items to your wishlist by cellphone using UPC/ISBN, but does not support browsing or searching with your mobile.

There are cool ways to view your collection including an iTunes-style cover flow, that you can even set as your screensaver. The freebies – a Facebook application, a widget for your blog, an iGoogle Module, an RSS feed, and an Amazon bookmarklet – are unparalleled among all these websites.

iTrackMine

iTrackMine is a collection manager for tracking, trading, and lending various items like movies, books, games, wine, and gadgets. You can add movies by scanning barcodes, searching, importing from files, or from iTunes, CollectorZ, Delicious Library, etc. It allows you to export your collection along with current market prices for insurance purposes. Using the cellphone assistant, you can search, browse, check prices, and add items to collections, wish lists, etc.

You can manage auto-feeds to Twitter and Friendfeed. The site only offers a default list view for your movies and there is no support for any statistics. iTrackMine is recommended if you wish to manage all of your movies, books, etc. at one place and are looking for good support on the cellphone.

DVDAficionado

This site allows you to share, browse, and search your collection, compare prices among top retailers, and do all this via your cellphone. Apart from titles, the search works with UPCs, ASINs, IMDB IDs, Directors, etc., and is incredibly easy to use. Though it doesn’t yet support bulk import, it has an active community of users, and supports bulk export to a text file. The development process is very transparent allowing you to submit new titles, and prioritize feature requests and defects. There is minimal support for statistics, and this site is thus best suited for those actively buying movies.

DVDCorral

DVD Corral has a nice interface with plenty of eye candy. You can scan your collection by UPC, import in bulk via CSV/XML, or search individually. It has a built-in loan manager, supports exporting to CSV for backup, and creating wishlists. You can view your collection in multiple ways, and easily post a link to Facebook and Delicious from within the site. You can also buy or rent downloadable digital movies from Amazon. At present, it does not offer any statistical view of your collection, but the site is under active development so expect more features in the coming months.

DVDCrate

DVD Crate allows you to track and catalog movies you own, wish to see, and have ordered. You can share these lists with others, import and export lists for backup, and is simple and fast to use. DVD Crate is for stats lovers: check interesting statistics, such as Top Actors/Directors/Genres, Decade, etc. The site seems to be maintained by a single developer, so enhancements are very slow. On the other hand, there is visibility for tracking enhancement requests, defects, roadmap, etc.

Are you familiar with any better website that allow users to catalog their movies online? Share them in comments!

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With nearly 3 million articles in the English version alone Wikipedia along with its sister wikis is an Alibaba’s treasure trove of information. Now, Wikipedia gives us a chance to take this information and use it as one of the oldest forms we have known – the humble book.

It is just the Wikimedia Foundation’s attempt to make ‘human knowledge’ accessible to everyone…online and now also offline. It started off with the German Wikipedia last year and now since February 26th it has moved onto the English version too.

To capsulize the process, users can collate the article pages of their choice and create a book from this existing material through a simple link available in Wikipedia. The compilation of articles can be arranged into chapters, given a title and finally exported as a PDF or as an Open Document and even sent to be professionally printed (at a cost).

One essential caveat is that a user has to create an account and log-on to access the book features.

The Wikipedia Help page goes through a step by step process of the nitty gritty…but I will give it a spin here too.

Logging In / Create Account

On the extreme top-right of a Wikipedia page is the link to Log-in or Create Account. Creating a new account is a simple process of giving a user name and a password. No email verification is required.

The Create A Book Menu

Search, browse and navigate to the Wikipedia article of your choice. On the left hand side, near the bottom is the create a book menu. It includes two items – Add wiki page and Books help.

Start adding the pages to your book by clicking the Add wiki page link on the relevant Wikipedia pages you want to include. The number of pages in the book gets automatically updated in the menu on the left. Two additional menu items – Show book (with a page counter) and Clear book appear in the menu.

You can also add an entire category within which the relevant page falls with just a single click. You can find the category hierarchy at the end of the article page.

Add The Title Of Your Book

With all pages added, click the Show book button to review your book. Here it is possible to add a book title (and a subtitle) and change the ordering of the wiki pages of the book through drag and drop. Unwanted pages can be dumped by a simple click of the ‘dustbin’ icon. New chapters can be included using the Create chapter link.

Many advanced functions like adding a particular revision or saving a book and improving the layout can be achieved through a combination of advanced functions. The Help page details those steps.

Download Or Order A Printed Copy

Voila! You have just ‘written’ your first book with the help of Wikipedia. Now, the finished book can be downloaded in PDF or OpenDocument format or ordered as a bound book. To download in the format of your choice, select the format from the dropdown and click the Download button. To order the book as a bound book, click the Order book from PediaPress button.

Wikipedia’s built-in rendering engine assembles the pages, grabs the images and parses them before they are passed on to the user in the final downloadable format. In its final avatar, my seven page Wikipedia selection transformed into a 4.4MB file downloaded as a 64 page PDF book. The end result was good…with neat alignments of photos and text.

If you take the PediaPress option, be prepared to dole out a few dollars as the starting price is US$ 8.90. Of course, the typesetting and publishing is of better quality and it comes bound too. A sample of a finished book can be seen on their site here.

Not many of us would even begin to create a home grown version of shelf lined Encyclopedia Wikipedia. But for smaller data needs, this feature comes as a welcome addition. Instead of individually downloading article pages as PDF’s we can now systematically arrange it into a PDF book for offline perusal.

Have you taken to this feature yet? Give us a glimpse into your thoughts in the comments section.

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With the overwhelming majority of readers still buying books, instead of going to their local library, many like to have a nice way to organize what they’re reading, share it with the world and give their take on it. So, like any other popular forms of media, several websites and applications have been born to do these tasks. I’ve chosen four of the best. So enter, best websites to keep track of yor books.

Shelfari

If you are looking for a product that does it all, and looks gorgeous, Shelfari delivers. They cover almost all aspects – from getting connected to friends, to selecting your books, to embedding your current reads in your blog or website. They make it extremely easy and user friendly, while delivering a beautiful look and feel at the same time.

• A gorgeous graphical user interface, that is incredibly user friendly.
• Give book reviews and ratings.
• Embed books on your blog or website.
• Find friends and family to share your books with.
• Join groups with your likes to discover new titles.
• Get e-mail updates from friends and groups.
• Communicate with authors.

Features:

Easy to use drop-down interface, to select the current status on a title.

A look at your user profile, where you’ll see the current book(s) you are reading, plan to read or have already read.

A preview image, provided by Shelfari, of what you can embed in your website or blog. A great way to communicate to friends and family, not only about your current books, but also about Shelfari itself.

Goodreads

Another great cataloging site that doesn’t quite have the same nice GUI interface as Shelfari, but is still incredibly simple and still has a lot of the same capability. Goodreads has the funding behind them and have a huge loyal following.

If you are looking for a site that has a huge database of recommendations, friends and groups then Goodreads is a solid selection.

• Add and remove an endless amount of books.
• Give book reviews and ratings.
• Share your books, book reviews and comments with friends and family.
• Get great recommendations based upon your ratings.
• Get continuous e-mail updates on your friend’s and family’s books.
• Communicate with authors.
• Get book specials and deals.

Features:

An example of what one of my friends is reading. I’m not displaying anything, but below this you will see books your friends have read in the past, their reviews, and their rating.

A look at my current bookshelf. What I’ve read, my ratings, my reviews, and future books.

LibraryThing

Librarything isn’t all that much different from the previous sites I have mentioned. It has a lot of the same capability, but has been around much longer then the others, so it has a much bigger following.

• Enter up to 200 books for free. After 200, it’s $10/year or $25/life.
• Huge tagging engine, with tag cloud and other options.
• Catalog from Amazon, Library of Congress and almost 700 other libraries.
• The ability to request early reviews of unreleased books.
• Yet another that includes a recommendation engine.
• Get information on local visits from authors, or book clubs.
• Forums, groups, books covers, you name it, they’ve got it.
• Offline desktop installation.
• Track Books, DVDs, Music and Games
• Add items through your webcam, by barcode scanning
• Import items through spreadsheets or LibraryThing

A look at a ‘book profile’ and some of the details it displays.

There are many many groups to join and collaborate with.

Libra (Desktop App)

Libra’s desktop application is an offline media storing program that you can use to track not only books, but DVDs, games and music as well. The program is free and has no limits, but it does lack any online connection. It does have the ability to link to Amazon books, and uses its search ability to find books, but you do not have the ability to view your collections online.

Check out Simon’s review of Libra here.

A look at your bookshelf through Libra.

A book’s profile after you click on an item.

Other Notables:

Gurulib
Listal
Amazon YourMediaLibrary

As you can see, there are a few other options out there for tracking your book collections. All of them have their own unique features and abilities. From my own personal opinion, the most user friendly and most feature rich choice, is Shelfari. However, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed with any of the other choices. Try them all out for a while, and form your own opinion.

Which of these do you like? Do you know of any sites or applications that you use besides these? Let us know.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Here’s some other reference websites worth a look, sites you can make use of.

1. Dictionary.com – One of my favourites. Also includes Thesaurus.com and Reference.com. Has email subscription services and RSS feeds.

2. About.com – This site has become much more commercialized over the years with more and more advertising. But nevertheless, you can find a wealth of information on numerous subjects, with more subjects being added all the time.

3. How Stuff Works – Have you ever wondered how something works or why something happens the way it does? How Stuff Works will explain. Numerous categories and easy-to-understand information.

4. The Straight Dope – Ask your meaningful questions to Cecil and he might just answer them. Cecil has a huge database and he answers some extremely interesting questions such as “Who has the power to arrest the president?” and “can I declare a no-fly zone over my house?”

5. Dict.cc – Being in Germany and learning the German language, I love this website. It is a Wikipedia style English-German dictionary where people can edit the definitions if they don’t agree with them. Cue lots of online linguistic arguments! I really like Dict.cc because you find lots of obscure terms and slang that you wouldn’t normally find in a regular dictionary.

6. The New York Public Library – The New York Public Library has built an online picture collection of 30,000 digitised images from books, magazines and newspapers as well as original photographs, prints and postcards. An absolutely amazing collection.

There are also a couple of previously published MakeUseOf posts that you may want to have a look at

• Top 10: Free and Highly Trafficked Q&A Communities
• Massive List of ‘HowTo’ Sites + ‘HowTo’ Search Engine

Mark O’Neill is a freelance writer, proofreader, editor and blogger. Check out his blog at BetterThanTherapy.net

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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1. Federal Bureau of Investigation

Being a true-crime fan, the FBI website is a regular stop for me. Not only does the FBI use their site as a recruitment tool but they also discuss closed cases and they take you “behind the scenes” so to speak to let you see how the Feds cracked the case. Here is a good example.

You can also learn about the various FBI departments, the history of the FBI, and of course view the famous Most Wanted Lists.

But what really makes the FBI website stand out is how much you can download. Scattered throughout the site are PDF downloads of cases, forensic science subjects and much more. All now we need is a FBI badge generator and an alien costume and we can play Mulder and Scully!

2. Central Intelligence Agency

At first glance, you might think there isn’t much to the CIA website but there are some interesting sections.

For example, take a virtual tour through CIA Headquarters, view an encrypted monument at Langley to see if you can break the code, go on a virtual tour around the CIA Museum, but the best feature of all is the annually updated CIA World Factbook. Never be bad at geography ever again. You can even download a copy of the Factbook free of charge.

But if you’re looking for files on who killed JFK, you’ll be disappointed.

3. Library of Congress

One of the most famous libraries in the world and now it’s online. Browse through documents and collections. “American Memory” provides access to documents, maps, audio, video and photos. Search through past and current legislation making its way through Congress. Oh and if you’re planning a personal visit to the LOC, check out what they are currently exhibiting.

4. National Archives

For those with an interest in history, this site is a must-go-to. The amount of information available here to view and to download is just staggering. So it’s impossible to cover it all here. A few highlights though -

View and download a high-resolution scan of the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution.

Make online visits to the Presidential Libraries, view the documents of the White House and subscribe by RSS feed to “Document of the Day”.

5. NASA

As well as a true-crime fan, I am also a Trekkie, so NASA is another of my favourite websites. View the Interactive Features section to see space-related material including photos, slide shows, videos and podcasts. Subscribe by RSS feed to “NASA Image of the Day”, view the NASA World Book and read up on past and current missions. One small step for me, one big download for my PC.

Do you have a favourite government website not included in the list above? Tell us about it in the comments!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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