thechangelab.com

Useful Web Sites

Useful as in having some practical, meaningful use.

As one may guess, this is a sequel to that software article. However, this one is about web sites that have stuck with me, being the info. junkie I am. While scanning this, how about what web sites can’t you live without?

As before, there are some exclusions such as porn or sites devoted to the subject (not to be sex-negative).

OSnews.com

A must for info. addicts wanting to stay on top of the latest in the world of operating systems, software, programming and even hardware. It’s neither Linux nor Windows-specific. Interested in Mono, RISC OS, BeOS, databases, Qt, Intel or embedded systems? A quasi-blog style site reminiscient of /., it’s hard to live without.

DistroWatch.com

This one tries to do it all in covering as many living – and some dead – Linux distributions. Most importantly, it maintains a searchable databse of them and their features over the course of their up-to-the-moment existence. And yes, it does cover the BSD’s and Solaris’s. If you want to know about new and/or forthcoming releases, this is the site to go to. Yes, there’s www.linux.org. Their list of distros isn’t nearly as comprehensive. However, they do cover the ones that run on Windows.

Ars Technica

For me, the point of Ars Technica, is that they recognize that tech minded people can be political too. While it covers the biz from a global standpoint, it is nonetheless a U.S. site.

So who are these “tech minded” people? The same ones who build their own, vote, game, and/or simply want to know what’s happening in the world.

Slashdot

Slashdot. “/.”. If you don’t know this one…. Well, you might want to start taking a look at it.

IBM developerWorks

Yeah, it’s on the IBM site. Regardless, they have a huge number of well written, properly cited articles. Not all of them are IBM-specific, though they do seem to get featured more. These articles are pretty much free to view with no registration required.

Intel Processor Spec Finder

Whenever I’m looking at building or upgrading an Intel system that’s “older”, this is one of my first stops. Got an old PII and don’t have the full specs for it? Buying one on eBay and have the sSpec Number? You can start here. But if it’s something to do with Windows, then try this for troubleshooting your install.

One day, I hope AMD will have a CPU spec finder tool. In the meantime, they do have some videos on CPU installation.

- toshiya