Even if you consider yourself a bit of a web guru, there are a host of useful and interesting things you can do on the web that you might not have come across. The table below lists some of the more useful of these links and sites.
Criteria for inclusion on this list: key missed topics, pick the one best web-site, often UK-based.
| Communicate (e-mail) / (mobile)
/ (phone) / (postal) / (web)
| Computers | Domestic Services
| Finance | Health | Leisure
| Literature | Personal | Products
| Search | Travel | Miscellaneous
|
| What you want to do | Useful Web-site | Why it's useful | UK-only? | Cost/year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Communicate (e-mail) | ||||
| Avoid SPAM | e-mail Preference Service | Helps to suppress junk e-mail. | N | 0 |
| Collect e-mails from several accounts | Mail-X-Change, or Mail-Center.com | If you can't collect personal e-mail from work, this service will fetch it & forward it to work for you. | N | $30 min |
| Communicate (mobile) | ||||
| Browse a WAP site | Wapsilon | View mobile sites from your PC. | N | 0 |
| Create your own WAP site | Genie myWAP | N | 0 | |
| E-mail from SMS | eXcell | N | 0 | |
| Send SMS | ADSAR SMS Sender | Send text messages through Genie Free SMS - a lot easier than normal. | Y | 0 |
| Communicate (phone) | ||||
| Fax to/from e-mail | FaxtoMail, fax.co.uk, FAQ | Can e-mail people who only have fax, no e-mail. Can send/receive your faxes from anywhere. | Y | ~£20 min |
| Permanent phone/fax number | Flextel | 'Free' 0870 phone numbers, that you can divert easily. | Y | £10 one-off |
| Communicate (postal) | ||||
| Send a telegram | TelegramsOnline | Post a letter from the web. Can be delivered the same day. | N | £2 min |
| Communicate (web) | ||||
| Automatically monitor the health of your web-site | 1stWarning | N | 0 min | |
| Annotate any web-site | crit.org | N | 0 | |
| Build a web-site | Clarity | Quickly create a web-site, using the web. | N | ? |
| Store files on the web | Yahoo! Briefcase | You & anyone else with your password can access the files from anywhere. | N | 0 |
| Watch a web page | Mind-it | Notifies you whenever a web-page that interests you gets updated. | N | $20 |
| Your own shop on the web | Yahoo! Store | N | $50 min | |
| Computers | ||||
| Drivers for your PC | Driverzone.com | N | 0 | |
| Fix your PC | PC Hell | N | 0 | |
| Personal firewall | Zone Alarms | Stops hackers from entering your PC when it's connected to the Internet. | N | 0 min |
| Domestic Services | ||||
| Conduct a survey/poll | Zoomerang, Online Surveys | Create online surveys and questionnaires via the web and send to your audience using e-mail for their participation. | N | 0 |
| Contact the government | UK online Citizen Portal | You can deal with more & more UK Government departments on-line. | Y | 0 |
| Local Information | Up My Street | View local Council Tax rates, schools, average house prices, etc. | Y | 0 |
| Personal assistant / concierge service. | Y-Club | Has a free trial period. | Y | £400 |
| Publish an editable list on the web | ?? | N | ?? | |
| Translate text to/from a foreign language | AltaVista Translate | N | 0 | |
| Finance | ||||
| Check up on a company | Companies House | Official list of, and information on, all UK companies. | Y | 0 min |
| Donate to any charity | All About Giving (CAF) | It's the 'official' list of UK charities. | Y | 0 |
| Internet banking | Nationwide | If you use Microsoft Money, you need never reconcile your bank statement again. Very few other internet banks in the UK offer as complete a facility. | Y | 0 |
| Locate an ATM | MasterCard/Cirrus, Visa | Where to withdraw cash. | N | 0 |
| Pay bills | GiroBank BillPay, Clear | Pay bills instantly using your debit card. | Y | 0 |
| Pay someone (UK) | egg Pay, NOCHEX, PayHound | E-mail payment to someone, without having to know their
bank details. egg Pay max £200.
|
Y | 0 |
| Pay someone (international) | Paypal | Paypal is very similar to egg Pay, but is international, and supports e-commerce on your website. | N | 0 |
| UK Banks | AFD BankFinder Internet | Find a bank branch from the sort code. | Y | 0 |
| Leisure | ||||
| Manage invitations | evite.com | Event planning and organization simplified. | N | 0 |
| Literature | ||||
| Acronyms | Acronym lookup | N | 0 | |
| Personal | ||||
| Products | ||||
| Best Buy products & services | Which? | Thoroughly independent and authoritative advice from the Consumer's Association. Some information is available free. | Y | £93 |
| Company car tax guide | Car
Chooser |
Help for company car drivers and their employers who will be choosing a new car. Really good for company car owners. | Y | 0 |
| Comparison shopping | Price-Guide UK, Kelkoo | Compares product prices across several shopping sites. | N | 0 |
| Customised merchandise | CafePress.com | Free, one-stop service for you, but it means the merchandise is more expensive for buyers! And advertise CafePress T-shirts at Custom T shirt directory | N | 0 |
| Supermarket best buys | priceoffers.co.uk | Keeps track of the latest supermarket special offers, allowing you to compare & contrast. | Y | 0 |
| View Teletext | Teletext | TV text information on the web, for convenience. | Y | 0 |
| Yellow Pages (UK) | Yell | Y | 0 | |
| Search | ||||
| Find people on electoral register | 192.com | Y | 0 | |
| Search with Authority™ | www.teoma.com |
Uses expert pages of links to give more authoritative search results. It works. | N | 0 |
| View old web-pages | Internet Archive | View a website the way it was in the past. | N | 0 |
| Travel | ||||
| Aerial photos | Multimap.com | The photos show buildings, fields, etc. | Y | 0 |
| Avoid traffic jams | RAC Route Minder | Texts or e-mails you when traffic problems occur. | Y | £35 |
| Official tourist guide to UK | VisitBritain | Comprehensive listings, with official star ratings. | Y | 0 |
| Weather - 10 day forecast | www.weather.co.uk | N | 0 | |
| Miscellaneous | ||||
| Create a barcode | Seton | Code 39, Code 128, or Interleaved 2 0f 5 barcode formats. | N | 0 |
| Create web-site terms & conditions | e-terms.co.uk | Customised terms & conditions, written by lawyers, covering everything you as an internet merchant need to be compliant with. | Y | £35 |
| UK laws | HMSO | Full text of any UK law. | Y | 0 |
If you have a worthwhile addition, please suggest it. This page is the master, also mirrored at easypeasy.com.
See also: the less useful things that didn't make it into this list, and The Web 100.
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