|
Search Engines |
|
|
Google |
There are many local versions of Google, but
I like the Canadian version |
|
Lycos |
Quite a good image search facility |
|
AltaVista |
Before Google came along, this was my
favourite search engine |
|
DogPile |
Not fast, not the best, but this engine
searches many search engines at the same time and sometimes
comes up with results you won't get anywhere else |
|
The Search Engine Guide |
want to find a different search engine? There
are thousands listed here |
|
OAIster |
They describe themselves this
way:
OAIster
is a project of the
University of
Michigan Digital Library Production Service.
Our goal is to create a collection
of freely available, previously difficult-to-access,
academically-oriented digital resources (what
are digital resources?) that
are easily searchable by anyone.
What they really are
though is a portal to what is sometimes called the
undernet. What is the undernet? It is the 96% of
the internet that Google does not and can not know about.
Very useful for students or 'serious' researchers. |
|
DMOZ Open Directory Project |
With nearly 600,000
categories of human reviewed links this is perhaps the most
useful place to look if you want to explore something and
not surf randomly. If you are an expert on something you can
become an editor
here and share your knowledge with the 'world'. |
|
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|
Email |
|
|
MSN Hotmail |
Probably the biggest and best known free
email system - you probably already have an account here... |
|
Yahoo Mail |
The other really big free service... |
|
Other email providers |
I did a search on Google for 'free email' and
got 45,100,000 hits. If you want a new email account, you
can find one in there I am sure |
|
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|
Web
Surfing Resources |
|
|
Tucows |
Need a driver? A piece of software? Go here. |
|
MS
Internet Explorer |
Even though it is starting to lose market
share, this is still the most used web browser. This means
it is the most targeted by spammers, and Internet Evil
Doers. There are sites that demand that you use it though. |
|
Netscape |
The big competition for Explorer |
|
Mozilla |
Open source Browser that works as well as
anything out there. It has the extra benefit of being
largely ignored by spammers and hackers |
Adobe Acrobat Reader
 |
Read '.pdf' files on or offline |
|
Winzip |
The most popular file compression software |
|
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|
Computer
Resources |
|
Gizmo
Richards' Tech Support Alert
The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities |
No ads, spy-ware, junk mail,
spam or hidden costs. All you will find here is a list of 46
of the best freeware tools available on the internet. If you
register (free), you will be able to access many more of
these little gems. This site has that computer application
you have been wishing someone would invent and you don't
have to pay a thing. |
|
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|
News |
|
Note:
Because I am Canadian, and because I teach English, I will
list English Language resources - mostly. Some of these
links contain resources in other languages. |
BBC
(British Broadcasting Corporation) |
The world's largest English language
broadcaster has a truly spectacular web empire. It has
hundreds of thousands of pages, every kind of media you can
think of (well, ok, they wont send you a handwritten note),
games, videos, sound archives... It is simply impossible to
get bored here |
CBC
(Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) |
This would be here in any case, because I am
a Canadian, but the interesting thing (that I learned only
after I left Canada) is that this is the world's second
largest English language broadcaster.
Their website is quite a bit smaller that the
BBCs and you can get bored here, but it is a good source of
information about North America that isn't actually from an
American media source |
|
Reuters |
One of the biggest news
'wire' services. Read news from around the
world, get images, odd news, etc. |
|
Guardian Unlimited |
The Guardian may
just be one of the best English newspapers on the Internet.
Very highly recommended. |
|
The International Herald Tribune |
A truly great
American Newspaper. |
Newsmap
Warning:
Broadband connection recommended |
I have NO idea how useful this site really
is, but it is a fascinating site, in several different
languages, offering a graphic search of news sources. Mostly
I just like playing with it! |
|
Onlinenewspapers |
Links to many thousands of newspapers in
many, many languages. You can search by country or
continent. If you are a news addict you might want to make
sure you have a free afternoon before investigating this one |
|
SR International |
Swedish Radio International is the world
media portal to Swedish news and culture. You can hear the
latest news in English (or one of 20 other languages), read
articles, etc. |
|
The Local |
News from the Swedish Newspapers translated
and distilled. A really good source of English news about
Sweden |
|
Aljazeera |
Want a different view of what is going on in
the middle east? This is a good place to start. |
|
China Daily |
A fascinating look at China.
This is the official government newspaper and that means
that some topics are not covered, but the discussion boards
are lively and interesting and offer good insight into
Chinese culture. |
|
The Japan Times |
Another fascinating look
through the eyes of a different culture. |
|
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|
Music
to surf by |
|
Classical
Live Online Radio Webcast |
Like classical music? Check
this site out! Great links to classical music radio stations
all round the world. |
Radio Tower
The Internet Radio Receiver |
There are a lot of internet
radio sites, but this one manages to get along without
injecting ads. They have a good selection of real radio
stations available too. |
|
SHOUTcast |
Another online radio website,
this time from AOL and Nullsoft -the
creators of Winamp. If you are not sure of what that is,
follow the links on the page and you will be rewarded with a
free MP3 player (a good one too!)
This site is ad supported, but the ads
are subtle and non-intrusive. The 'radio' stations may or
may not be commercial and some are better than others. Right
now, I am very likely to be listening to
http://www.folkalley.com/ through
their listing on this site. If you like modern acoustic folk
music this is the best station I have ever heard - Try it! |
Amazon.com
Free Music Downloads |
Ok. I know what you are
thinking - Finally! The commercial link on the website!
It's not true! This is where you can get free, legal mp3
files - honest! Try it out. |
|
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|
Fascinating but hard to define |
|
The
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
|
Have you read
the books? Seen the movie (film for those of a British persuasion)?
Listened to the BBC radio series which started the Douglas
Adams phenomenon? If you have, you need no introduction to
the Hitchhiker's Guide just follow this link and start
consulting or contributing to the guide on BBC's web site.
If you have
never read the books, seen the movie, etc. - you should. In
the mean time, you can get a feel for the whole thing by
looking at a sample entry from the guide - Choosing the Correct Rocks for your Sauna Oven
is a good example of what you can expect.
Dive
in... have fun... |
|
The
Viking Answer Lady |
This is an
amazing site so filled with information about the Vikings
that you could spend a week getting through everything. Want
to know what people ate in the Viking era? What units of
measurement they used? How tall they were? Everything you
might ever need to know is here. |
|
NationMaster.com |
Need information
about a particular country? Need to compare Canada and New
Zealand, or Sweden and South Africa? This is the site you
need to visit. They describe themselves this way:
...a
massive central data source and a handy way to
graphically compare nations. NationMaster is a vast
compilation of data from such sources as the CIA World
Factbook, UN, and OECD.
Take a look -
it is a fascinating resource. |
|
The Internet Archive |
Hundreds of thousands of web
pages, internet sites, photos, videos, music, etc. available
free. These people are building an archive trying to capture
some of the Internet's lightning-fast history. Pack a lunch,
you can get lost here for many, many hours |
20 Questions
(Play with an artificial intelligence) |
The old game of 20 questions,
much loved by English teachers and somewhat drunk party
goers, well, it was never like this!
This 'game' plays 20
questions with you and it is amazing - it guessed that I was
thinking of a Basset Hound in 27 guesses. I beat it, but it
eventually got Basset Hound! Who thinks of a basset hound?
Go on, test it yourself! |
|
howstuffworks
|
Want to learn how the
electricity grid works, or how to replace the floor under a
toilet, or how to...
This is a great site.
There are detailed, illustrated explanations of thousands of
things and processes. It is a bit hard to describe though,
so it ends up in this section and you will have to visit the
website to truly appreciate it. Have fun. |
|
The Dialectizer |
Here is how they define what
they do:
Convert English text to any of several comic
dialects.
The Dialectizer
takes text or other web pages and instantly creates parodies
of them!
Go ahead and
give it a try! Convert your favourite webpage to redneck or
Swedish Chef! You can even enter your own text and convert
that - great fun for that boring report or paper... |
|
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|
Sweden
Links |
|
|
These links are for visitors
from outside Sweden and for Swedes who want to read about
Sweden in English. |
SWEDEN.SE
The official gateway to Sweden |
There is a little bit of
everything Swedish here. I spent a lot of time on this
website before I moved here. |
Smorgasbord
The Shortcut to Sweden |
Also a fascinating site. They
describe themselves this way:
"The Sweden Information
Smorgasbord is the web's largest single source of info in
English on Sweden, Swedish provinces, nature, culture,
lifestyle, society and industry and has been rated 8/10 by
Internet World - Sweden." |
|
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|
Images
Online |
|
|
Yotophoto |
Need
a free photo? This is definitely the place.
Here's how they describe themselves:
Yotophoto is the first internet search
engine for finding free-to-use photographs
and images.
Now indexing well over a quarter million
Creative Commons, Public Domain, GNU FDL,
and various other 'copyleft' images.
|
Skarabej
Online Museum of Old Family Photographs |
This is a very interesting
project. Here you can see thousands of old photographs of
people - ordinary people, doing ordinary
things.
Their slogan is:
"... beauty and
imperfection go together wonderfully" - Matthew Fox
|
|
The New York Public Library Digital Gallery |
There are more than 275,000
images here. There are illuminated texts, art deco wallpaper
patterns, magazine illustrations, photographs of actors and
so very much more. The first time I got here I had to buy
pizza for dinner because I lost all track of time and missed
cooking supper. Enjoy! |
|
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|
Games |
|
East
of the Web
Word games |
Several excellent word games
from a fine website. If you're interested in learning while
playing games check this out.
If you want something
quick to read check out their excellent short story
collection too! There is a link to those in the
Read section of this
links page. |
|
ORISINAL |
Online games for those who
don't actually like computer games. There are more than 50
free games here, try milking the cow, exploring the sea,
keeping spiders off your pie, chasing gophers with acorns...
the fun just goes on and on. |
EYESMAZE
(Broadband, ADSL connection
recommended) |
Flash based games from a
Japanese developer. You don't need much English here because
you are left to work out how to play most of the games on
your own. Pretty flashy though and the games do work very
well. |
|
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|
Other
Languages |
|
|
Ethnologue Languages of
the World |
Want to find out what
languages they speak in Lesotho or El Salvador? This is
definitely the place for you. They describe themselves as:
An encyclopedic reference
work cataloging all of the world’s 6,912 known living
languages |
|
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|
For students of English |
|
Note:
These links are here for the use of my students, but please
feel free to investigate even if you are not a student of
mine.If you would like to join one
of my courses, or ask me about a new course, just drop me a
line and we can talk in more detail. |
|
Dave's ESL Cafe |
This is possibly the biggest and most
complete website for students and teachers of English as a
second language. You can study almost anything you can think
of, join a discussion group at your level of English, find
teachers, courses, resources, links by the thousand, and...
Well, you get the idea. This is a great site. |
|
Learning English at the BBC |
BBC's world service has an amazing learning
English website. There are videos, music, stories, games...
you could spend weeks wandering around inside this site. |
|
|
This is the student links
page from another great English as a second language
website. There are thousands of links here on every topic
you can imagine. |
|
The United Nations Cyber School Bus site |
Want to study UN treaties,
learn about cities and countries around the world, Take a
virtual tour of UN Headquarters, compare country details...
And all of this is written with students in mind. It's not
always an easy read, but you can do it if you try! |
|
Grammar links from Lewis & Clark College in
the USA |
There are dozens of good
links to grammar resources on the Internet - and they are
'graded' for degree of difficulty. So, if you feel the urge
to study grammar, or just need some help falling asleep one
night, this is the place for you! |
Simple
English Wikipedia
|
Here is how the page
describes itself:
... the
Simple English
Wikipedia.
Wikipedias are places where many people are working together
to make encyclopaedias
in many languages. Here at this place, we only use very
simple English words and simple writing structures.
There are 2948
pages in this Simple English Wikipedia. All of the pages are
free to use. |
|
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|
Dictionaries |
|
|
Merriam-Webster online Dictionary |
An excellent 'American'
English dictionary. |
|
Cambridge Dictionaries online |
This may be the best
English learner's dictionary site. Here you can find out
about both British and American English, idioms, phrasal
verbs and more. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED |
|
Swedish School Net Lexin |
Need a quick, and excellent
translation of a Swedish word or an English word into
Swedish? This is the place. Nine other languages to Swedish
also available here. |
|
Online Etymology Dictionary |
Have you ever
wondered where an English word came from? This is
where you need to look. They describe themselves this way:
This is a
map of the wheel-ruts of modern English. Etymologies are
not definitions; they're explanations of what our words
meant and how they sounded 600 or 2,000 years ago.
Have fun! |
|
Swedish/English Medical Dictionary from Karolinska
Institutet |
An absolutely
fantastic resource for anyone who needs to work between
Swedish and English in the medical field. Anatomy, diseases,
psychiatry, chemicals and drugs, the humanities... this is a
huge, searchable glossary that covers almost every possible
aspect of medical practice. |
|
Language Automation Glossaries |
This website is dedicated to
helping people maintain websites in multiple languages. One
of the tools they offer is the amazing list of glossaries
listed on the page I have linked to here. Slang, financial
terms, acronyms, symbols, many different translating word
lists... the list goes on and on. If you are looking for a
word or term -
look here first! |
Bartleby.com
English Quotations |
Ever wonder how writers find
those perfect quotes at the beginning of every chapter? You
can find them too if you use this great site. Give it a try
and amaze your friends and family. |
|
English slang and colloquialisms used in the
United Kingdom |
Want to find out if a Britt
has cursed you or praised you? Look here.
WARNING: *Adult*
language |
Online Slang Dictionary
(American+) |
American English slang plus
other 'world English' slang. You can add to this one if you
have a good bit of new slang.
WARNING: *Adult* language |
|
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|
Writing and Style Guides |
|
European Commission Translation Service Style Guide
Can take a long time
to download, but
worth it if you write. |
This is a fabulous resource
and it is free! There are 121 pages of detailed advice on
how to write English in the EU. Go ahead, use it to find all
the errors I have on this website! |
|
The Guardian
style guide |
The house style guide for the
Guardian Newspaper is available online or as a .pdf file.
You will have to look carefully along the left margin of the
webpage to see the link -- it is very
small. You can also follow
this link that takes you to the .pdf file directly. You
can also download the guide as a Word document, but it is
huge -- the .pdf is just easier. |
RhymeZone
Very Highly Recommended! |
Find rhymes, definitions,
check the spelling of a word... in short, you can find out
anything you need to know about almost any word.
You can also search the
writings of Shakespeare, find quotations, read all the
Mother Goose rhymes, take tests, play games...
This is a great site! |
|
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|
Grammar |
|
|
NetGrammar |
Want to study grammar on your
own, at your own pace? This is a great place to start. Basic
English grammar is presented in clear, easy to follow
lessons. Gives you what you need without any ads or
distractions. |
|
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|
READ! |
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.
Inside of a dog it's too dark to read."
Groucho Marx
|
Majority English
The dialect of the non-native speaker |
This is a great, free,
newsletter for non-native speakers of
English. There is some vocabulary practice, advice about
English that would make most teachers of English turn pale,
fun quotes from many sources (including a mysterious
contributor named
Dartwill Aquila) and a
lot of good advice.
It is also fun to read! |
Short Stories
form East of the Web |
This site is very highly
recommended. You will find tremendously original short
fiction here. There is something here for
every reader and it is all free. If I rated websites, this
one would get five out of five.
Check out their word games
while you're there! There is a direct link
on this page in the games
section. |
Project
Gutenberg
Free Books Online |
More than 13,000 books online
- for free. |
|
The Online
Books Page |
20,000+ books online. |
|
Banned Books Online |
This is a sub-page of the
Online Books Page, but it is worth a separate listing. All
the books here have been banned in the past or are banned
now... |
University of Michigan
Fantasy and Science Fiction Website |
This is a great collection of
online SF and Fantasy works from the early days of the
genre: Jules Verne, Sir Richard Burton, Edgar Rice
Burroughs, H. G. Wells, are all here along with many others.
There is also a Collateral
Works section with things like: The Aeneid by Virgil, Don
Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, The Origin of Species by
Charles Darwin, and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by
Mary Wollstonecraft. An excellent little collection!
You can also link into the
University of Michigan's larger library system from here. |
|
The
Avalon Project |
This is an
amazing collection of historical documents, but,
important documents from around the world is not really
a good explanation of what you will find on this website.
You can read transcripts from the Nuremberg War Crimes
Trial, Caesar's law of Municipalities
from 44 B.C., or American documents related to events now
taking place the middle east. All brought to you by Yale Law
School. |
|
Project Runeberg |
Ok... these are mostly
Swedish books with the odd bit of other Scandinavian
languages thrown in (there are a few English books too).
You are probably tired of all the English by now anyway... |
Chuck Shepherd's
NEWS of the WEIRD |
Most of my students know
about this site! Very strange (weird) news stories... |
International Children's Digital Library
High speed connections recommended |
You will also find many thousands of books here, but they
are all children's books. Most are old, out of print, public
domain books, but they are reproduced here with full
illustrations. A wonderful site! |
|
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|
Where to
buy books |
The English Book Centre
Stockholm |
Unfortunately, the English
Book Centre has now gone out of business. This is a great
loss for anyone teaching English or looking for English
language study materials.
I will try to find other
links for those looking for books, but it will be next to
impossible to replace this one. |
|
The Uppsala
English Bookshop |
Want to feel like you are in
a local bookshop in residential England, Canada, etc? Shop
here. They have a small, but great inventory that always
seems to include exactly what I was looking for. They will
also special order for you and their prices are as good as
anywhere in Sweden.
On-line shopping also available at their website. |
|
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|
The Sound
of English |
|
Old Time
Radio Shows
in MP3 & Real Audio
EY's Audio Links |
More than 100 links to
websites that play or allow you to download old time radio
shows... I'm listening to Groucho Marx trying to marry a
young couple as I write this. |
American Rhetoric
The power of oratory in the United
States |
"Rhetoric
is the art, practice, and study of human communication."
Andrea Lunsford
This is an
almost unbelievable resource. You can read full transcripts
of thousands of the most famous English language speeches in history, hear
hundreds of recordings, watch videos of speakers, study the
science and art of Rhetoric. There is a lot here. |
|
International Dialects
of English Archive, IDEA |
This is a fantastic site with
hundreds (thousands?) of recordings of people speaking
English - both native speakers and speakers of English as a
foreign language. This is how they introduce themselves:
The
International Dialects of English Archive, IDEA, was
created in 1997 as a repository of primary source recordings
for actors and other artists in the performing arts. Its
home is the Department of Theatre and Film at the University
Of Kansas, in Lawrence, KS, USA; while associate editors
form a global network. All recordings are in English, are of
native speakers, and you will find both English language
dialects and English spoken in the accents of other
languages. The recordings are downloadable and playable for
both PC and Macintosh computers. |
British Library
Accents and Dialects
(Spoken British English)
You will need Windows Media Player to listen to these sound
files. |
It is a constant question: Is
British or American English better? Most people here in
Sweden will declare firmly that British English is the
only way to go...
These are recordings of
different British English speakers and a brief analysis of
the language they speak. Not very many of them sound like
the voices on the learn English tapes.
As a Canadian, I feel a
little removed from this debate, so, I will let you decide
for yourself; British or American?
One of my favourites is:
Hockley Heath, Warwickshire |
|
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|
Practice Speaking English Online |
|
fonetics.org |
This is a great site - you
can pick the type of English accent you want to practice.
Here is how they describe themselves:
· The world's most
visited pronunciation practice website · All 197 pages
now completely free online
· Over 40 native speakers · ESL + 9 languages ·
Instant sound · Click on a flag to open a dictionary
|
|
ship or sheep.com |
Another great site, with a
cool navigation system. They describe themselves this way:
Perfect your English
accent free online : English language pronunciation practice
using minimal pairs. |
|
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|
Just Plain Fun |
|
|
Museum of Hoaxes |
Famous hoaxes from history,
the 100 best April Fool's Day Hoaxes, hoax photos, hoax
website gallery, gullibility tests... the fun just never
ends! You will enjoy this site, I promise. |
Bad Puns
The site where you get
your muds wordled. |
Do you like playing with a
language? If the answer is yes, then this may be the site
for you. Here you can find gems like:
"If a wolf can take down a deer from either flank, does that
make him bambidextrous?"
Or,
"I was going to procrastinate. But I decided to leave it
till later." |
|
Mystery Net.com |
Do you like detective
stories? Take a look at this site. You can try to solve
mysteries, chat with other mystery buffs, and just have fun
- in English of course. |
|
Casebook: Jack
the Ripper |
This is a
fascinating page dedicated to one of the great unsolved
mysteries of the Victorian age. There are hundreds of pages
of newspaper articles, photos, maps and much more. The goal,
of course, is to solve the crime. If you like British
detective stories, you will love this site. |
|
Tongue Twisters |
Little gems like: Irish
wristwatch, or, Shredded Swiss cheese and many of
the old classics too.
Many teachers of English
would suggest that you shouldn't work with these unless
there is an English speaker nearby - so you don't learn any
bad habits. This is not bad advice, but I believe you
gain a little every time you work with English on any level.
Go on! Live dangerously and
have fun!
|
Shakespearean Insulter
|
Let the greatest writer in
the history of the English language insult you! Fun for the
whole family! Ok, I
had to sit and think for a while before I decided to put
this in the Fun section and not the Strange section. Try it,
you might like it! |
|
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|
Too
Strange for Words |
|
CATPRIN
Tailor for cats
(from Japan) |
Ok, you have entered the
WEIRD part of the links list.
I have nothing like a witty
comment for this one... why would anyone do this to a cat? |
|
World's worst website |
A page designed to show some
of the most annoying errors in website design. I am am far
from being a professional page designer, but I think I
missed most of the errors this page shows...
Get ready to be irritated! |
|
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|
The End |
|
|
Last Page
on the Internet |
The name says it all. |