There’s a lot going on at Elgg Towers at the moment, but I can’t talk about any of it – so here’s something completely different.
The trouble with blogging as a medium is that we’re likely to highlight new things, that in turn have been highlighted to us by others, but we’re unlikely to link to the buried links we use but aren’t necessarily blog-worthy in the traditional sense. With that in mind, I thought I’d stick up some links to pages I use frequently – and ask you to comment with some of yours. None of these are hugely important, world-beating sites, and most of them aren’t new, but they have their uses.
- Printable paper rulers in PDF / Postscript format. I’m always misplacing rulers. This solution is perhaps not so great for the environment, but if you’ve got something to measure …
- Free online graph / grid paper is in a similar vein – you can generate lined, squared, hexagonal paper and more in PDF format, which can then be printed out on any printer.
- Workrave is open source software for Linux and Windows that reminds heavy computer users – be they programmers, students writing papers, faculty – to take rest breaks, and therefore avoid RSI and eye strain. It even includes exercises you can do to fight the negative health effects of sitting at a terminal all day.
- William Strunk’s The Elements of Style is online. I can’t claim to be an exemplary writer, but I do think this should be required reading.
- You can search Google for definitions by typing “define:” before a search term. I probably use this feature more than actually searching the web; it’s particularly good in Firefox and Opera, where a Google search window is at the top right of every browser screen. It also converts currencies and works as a pretty intelligent calculator. Forget Yubnub; Google is a pretty good Internet command line on its own.
Now it’s your turn: what are your favourite useful sites / free software that people might not know about?
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