News

• News: washingtonpost.com (use bugmenot.com to get a login)
  Technology and computer news: dead fish - anandtech - tomshardware - arstechnica
• News links and discussion: fark.com - slashdot.com
• News on videogame emulation: MAME - retrogames

Recommended free software (If you like them, buy or donate to them!)

• Anti-virus: AVG 7.0 free edition
• Anti-Spyware (Blocks it before it can install): Spyware Guard - Spyware Blaster - Winpatrol
• Anti-Spyware (for cleaning it up after it gets on your system): Spybot Search and Destroy - Ad-Aware (Get both, and update definitions often)
• Free Firewall (better than the one in Windows SP2): Zonealarm
• Web Browser: Firefox (finally, a worthy challenger for IE!)
• Media player: Winamp
• DOS emulator for playing ancient games: DOSBox
• U Mich archive (real old stuff)
• Old Apps
• OldVersion.com

My friends' sites:

• Erica - Crucible of War, a film documenting stories from the former Yugoslavia
• Ramsey - The Glass Maze, a thoughtful and eloquent blog
• Scary Mary's Secret House of Horrors (Cemetery Photography)
• LJ's awesome Art site and .... "Dumb Stuff"
• The Great Quail presents, The Libyrinth
• JH3 can be found - where else - JH3.com

Informational Reference/Research

• Movies: Internet Movie Database - Rotten Tomatoes - MoviePooper
• Books: Amazon
• Music: allmusic
• Urban Legends: snopes
• Dictionaries: dictionary.com - m-w.com - FOLDOC computing dictionary - Idiomsite (English language idioms)
• Arcade Games: arcade-history.com - GameArchive - coinop.org
• Middle Earth: The Encyclopedia of Arda
• Translations: the Babelfish
• Web search engine: Google - Google Images - Google Maps
• Domain Name search: BetterWhois
  Spyware Encyclopedia - Virus Encyclopedia - Virus Resources - annoyances

Useful Sites for tweaking your internet connection & other computer help

• Test the security of your PC against hackers: Gibson Research Corp (use "ShieldsUP")
• Test the speed of your internet connection: Speedtest - DSLreports
• Free webmail: GMail
• Battling Spyware: Parasite fight - Spywareinfo - Spywarewarrior - cexx.org - neoWin
• Burning and working with CDs and DVDs: CDcheck - McFadden CDR FAQ - afterdawn - mrichter.com - doom9 - CDRinfo - videohelp - dvddemystified
• Files for playing media on your PC: Free Codecs - Edskes
• Internet Radio: SomaFM (free and commerical free!)