| :: "Links that don't suck" |
Updated 12/15/04 |
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 Entertaining Sites to Visit When You're Bored
http://20q.net/ - You've never played 20 questions against someone this good before. Driven by an artificial intelligence that gets smarter every time someone plays against it. The site design is crappy, but the game itself is very cleverly implemented.
Acts of Gord - Hillarious true stories told by a video game store owner. His name is Gord. Note that there is plenty of foul language on this site since some of Gord's customers are quite rude.
L337 Translator - 5p34k 1337? With this, you won't need to. Translates from 1337 to English and vice versa. Can also translate to "advanced l33tsp34k."
FlashPlayer.com - a very large collection of flash movies and games. Most of them are crap, but some are quite good.
Webcomics - a staple for any avid websurfer.
My Site - I mean, geez, who wouldn't want to go here?
Excellent Free Downloadable Programs
Graphics
The GIMP - like Photoshop, only free, and not quite as good.
Terragen - a work-in-progress scenery generator for Windows and the Mac OS. Capable of rendering near-photorealistic images. Many images from the "My Creations" section of my site were made using this program.
POV-Ray (Persistence of Vision Raytracer) - a high-quality tool for creating stunning three-dimensional graphics. Unfortunately, it has a rather high learning curve.
Ultimate FX - an excellent companion to any graphics program. Basically a collection of lots of original filters that you won't find in Photoshop or GIMP, and some that you will. It -is- adware, but meh. It's worth it. Some really cool effects you can do with this thing.
Pic Texter - a nifty little program that will convert any (small) image into a textual representation of that image. It also supports output to HTML, like this. Pretty cool, eh?
Games
N - a.k.a. "the way of the ninja." Traverse trap-filled rooms, collecting gold, avoiding homicidal robots, and looking for the exit. Challenging levels, and lots of them. Your ninja has plenty of cool abilities. Simple but attractive graphics that are animated very smoothly; even watching your character die is entertaining. Runs windowed.
Little Fighter 2 - best freeware fighting game ever. Impressive and attractive graphics and animation. A wide variety of characters to choose from, each with very unique abilities, advantages, and disadvantages. Playing arenas range from small to very large. Supports up to 8 players, but only up to 4 of them can be human-controlled. Can play networked games or on a single computer. Runs windowed, and is therefore great for playing while doing other stuff in the background. Even without a friend to play with, this game is very fun.
Warning Forever - a very unique space shooter. The entire game is nothing but non-stop boss battles, each boss getting progressively harder. Suppossedly, the bosses also "learn" from their mistakes and adjust themselves to your fighting style, just to make things harder for you. Survive as long as you can. Very addicting. Simple but smooth and attractive graphics. I've never made it past level 30. Yes, the download page is all in Japanese, but the game is all in English.
Mario Forever - the best mario clone in existence. Original and attractive graphics. Original and innovative level design. Not easy to beat; very fun!
Pekka Kana 2 - an orignial adventure game starring Pekka Kana the rooster. It may seem kinda cheesy, but it's actually quite fun. The levels are well-designed and challenging. The graphics are beautiful.
Icy Tower - a simple and rather addictive vertical-scrolling game in which the goal is to climb the tower as high as possible without falling, all the while performing spiffy and impressive jumping tricks. Runs full-screen only. Mediocre graphics; great gameplay.
Web
FireFox - Tabbed browsing is your friend. If you don't have Mozilla, at least settle for FireFox. If you refuse, you will be shunned by anyone who is geeky or otherwise 3l173, and then Microsoft will eat you.
Trillian - a fully featured, stand-alone, skinnable chat client that supports AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo Messenger, and IRC. It provides capabilities not possible with original network clients, while supporting standard features such as audio chat, file transfers, group chats, chat rooms, buddy icons, multiple simultaneous connections to the same network, server-side contact importing, typing notification, direct connection (AIM), proxy support, encrypted messaging (AIM/ICQ), SMS support, and privacy settings. Basically, combines all of the chatting services into one program. Very convenient, and slick looking too.
NotepadEx - Replaces the default Windows Notepad that comes with your Windows computer. It retains the simplicity of the original Notepad while adding many much-needed features for programmers and web monkeys. Just try it out, you'll like it.
General freeware site: Snapfiles
Web Development Resources
Note: I worked very hard to find these sites. It should save people a lot of time.
Free Web Hosts
Sites that give you pre-made code
Sites that give you web templates
Sites that teach you web programming
All-around awesome web dev resources
Free (short) Domain Name provider: http://www.freedomain.co.nr/
Localendar - free calendar hosting for sites. Very customizable. Easy to post new events to your calendar. Only minimal knowledge of HTML required.
Other Cool Resources
OverClocked Remix - A host for hundreds of quality remixes of your favorite old video games. Very large selection of mp3s covering a wide number of genres and a ton of different games, all free to download. Needless to say, I visit this site every day checking for new remixes. Many of them are pretty mediocre-sounding, but others are pure gold.
AbortionTV, the most thoroughly done antiabortion website I've seen. This site does not hide any truth about abortion. As such, I should warn you that it contains many graphic pictures of dead babies. Poor site design, thorough matierial. Recommended.
World of Quotes - a giant database full of quotes. You like quotes, don'tcha'? Great resource for that essay you need to write.
GIFWorks! - An online GIF editor. You don't even need an image program; it's all online. Spiffy.
My Friends' Sites
Not necessarily places the general public would be interested in visiting, unless for some reason you want to know what my other friends are like. Most of these aren't websites as much as they are online journals.
Adam Gray - good for a laugh, or a thought provoking conversation once in a while.
John Hester - Currently an army medic in Iraq and giving regular updates!
Ben Nockles -Rarely updates, the bum.
Ramie Mount - We go way back, albeit off and on. Usually more off than on unfortunately...
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