Blogs | MP3s | Theological writings | General research tools

General research tools

  1. Accountability for using the Internet:
  2. AccuRadio: “the world’s leading independent, multichannel Internet radio station” (cf. about); complete channel list (e.g., classical station)
  3. Amazon: advanced search. The “Search Inside!” feature is especially handy, even for books you already own in print.
  4. Booking Buddy: Travel Search Made Simple
  5. Dictionaries for foreign languages: Google (translates about ten languages into English and vice versa), French, German (1, 2), Spanish
  6. Directions: Google Maps, Mapquest
  7. Gmail: my favorite email program (free)
  8. Google Books: about
  9. Google Desktop: features
  10. Google Earth: tour
  11. Google Scholar: about
  12. How Stuff Works
  13. Library Spot: “a free virtual library resource center” (about)
  14. Movie reviews: (1) Christian Spotlight on Entertainment; (2) Kids-n-mind; (3) Plugged In ; (4) Movie Guide
  15. National Review Online: about
  16. The New York Times
  17. Oxford English Dictionary: requires a subscription
  18. Photo organization/editing:
    • Picasa: Google’s free program
    • GIMPshop: free version of Photoshop
    • Adobe Photoshop: Not cheap. Included in the Creative Suite, either the Web Premium ($1,599 [student price: $499]) or Design Premium ($1,799 [student price: $599]). The student price for the whole CS3, which contains almost 10 pieces of software, is cheaper than Photoshop all by itself.
    • Adobe Photoshop Elements: a watered-down version of Photoshop
    • Microsoft Expression Design: competition for Photoshop
  19. Plugged In Online: reviews of recent movies, video/DVD, music, and television by a team that is part of Focus on the Family
  20. Primo PDF: turns documents into PDFs (though the free version does not retain hyperlinks in the PDFs it creates)
  21. Renaissance Art: “Fine Handcrafted Leather Books.” I’ve ordered four custom leather book covers for Bibles, and I’m very pleased with them.
  22. Star Light Products: product reviews and recommendations by my sharp cousin Taylor West (BA in economics from Harvard, MBA in marketing from Duke)
  23. The Wall Street Journal Online
  24. Weather: alerts and daily forecasts via email, local temperature on your desktop
  25. WebMD: about; convenient resource to check when dealing with a minor injury or sickness
  26. Wikipedia: “a multilingual, web-based, free content encyclopedia project” that “is written collaboratively by volunteers” (about)
  27. Wish lists: Regardless of its selfish-sounding name, “The Things I Want” is efficient for allowing multiple wish lists (including private and public) that link to multiple sites (e.g., not limited to Amazon.com). Cf. our wish lists.
  28. World Cat: “the world’s largest network of library content and services” (about)
  29. The World Factbook: FAQs