Reference Sites

AnyWho - Look up anybody's personal or business address, telephone number, fax number, email address, and Web site URL. AnyWho even lets you do reverse lookups -- enter a telephone number and it tells you who that number belongs to, or enter an address and it tells you who lives there. It will even give you a map to whatever address you enter.

Bartleby.com - The king of all free reference sites. According to The LangaList (www.langa.com) it has "the Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition; Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition; Simpson's Contemporary Quotations; The American Heritager Book of English Usage, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, Strunk's Elements of Style; six poetry anthologies, including the Oxford Book of English Verse; Emily Post's Etiquette; the Cambridge History of English and American Literature: An Encyclopedia in Eighteen Volumes; Frazer's the Golden Bough (1922), Thomas Bulfinch's Mythology," and much more.

Britannica.com - The entire Encyclopaedia Britannica online.

CALCULATORS - MegaCalculator is an online calculator with tons of functions. (Thanks Jean Levrier!)

Do It Yourself - Don't feel like paying big bucks to have someone come out and fix that leaky faucet? Wondering how to tuckpoint your brick house? This site has tons of advice for do-it-yourselfers. Here are just a few of the many categories that they have information on: Automotive, Brick and Masonry, Electrical, Flooring, Kitchen and Bath, Pest Control, and Plumbing. In addition, they have forums where you can post your do-it-yourself questions in case someone else knows the answer.

Driving Directions - MapQuest - FREE instant map & directions and more, anywhere in the United States.

Driving Directions - Yahoo - FREE instant map & directions, anywhere in the United States.

Eagala - According to its Web site, "Equine Assisted Growth and Learning Association is a non-profit organization developed to address the need for resources, education, and professionalism in the field of Equine Assisted Psychotherapy.... (EAP) is an emerging field in which horses are used as a tool for emotional growth and learning.EAP is a collaborative effort between a licensed therapist and a horse professional." (Thanks to a ComputerBob user who wishes to remain anonymous!)

E-The People - Want to write to your local, state, or national representative, but don't know their name or email address? E-The People will tell you who you need to write to, plus give you the email addresses of 140,000 federal, state and local officials.

FindStone - A one-stop shop for all of your stone buying, landscaping and stone tools needs. Includes an online expert to answer your questions. This site may be extremely slow at times. (Thanks to a ComputerBob user who wishes to remain anonymous!)

FindYourSpot - Answer many questions about what's important to you about a place to live and FindYourSpot tells you which cities or towns would be the best places for you to live. They also provide relocation and job-search information, to make it easier for you to move to your spot. Based on my preferences, FindYourSpot suggested that the best places for me to live would be Greenville, North Carolina; Hickory, South Carolina; Clarksville, Tennessee; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Athens, Georgia; or Tuscaloosa, Alabama. So why I am still in the snow belt?

GENEALOGY RESOURCES - Cyndi's List has links to many popular and helpful geneaology sites. (Thanks to a ComputerBob user who wishes to remain anonymous!)

How Stuff Works - Someone else created this site before I got a chance to do it, and they sure did a great job on it. It's all explained -- refrigerators, clocks, thermometers, car engines, microwave ovens, tire pressure gauges, smoke detectors, UPC barcodes, nuclear power, and LOTS more. Fascinating.

How To: Internet Radio - How would you like to be able to listen to AM and FM radio stations from all over the world? There are now thousands of radio stations worldwide, broadcasting their signals over the Internet to anyone who has the right hardware (you probably already have it.) and the right software (you can get it for free.) This document will tell you how to get started. It also includes links to lists of all types of radio stations on the Web.

Lemon Lookup - Enter the vehicle identification number of that used car you're thinking of buying, and giggo.com will search its database of 700,000 vehicles and tell you if yours passes the "lemon test". If you're willing to pay a fee, it will also tell you how many owners it has had, any major collision damage, any odometer tampering, and more.

Martindale's "The Reference Desk" - Pretty much everything and anything you'd ever want to find in a reference site. Incredible. (Thanks to a ComputerBob user who wishes to remain anonymous!)

Money Machine - When are 30-year fixed-rate mortgage interest rates expected to drop all the way to 6.25%? Who offers the lowest fixed interest rate for credit cards? How can you save thousands of dollars in mortgage interest charges? What fees can you expect to pay when closing a loan? How does online banking work? Find out the answers to these and many more important money questions.

Refdesk - "Since 1995, Refdesk is a free and family-friendly web site that indexes and reviews quality, credible, and current web-based resources." (Thanks for the link, burdicda!)

Reverse Lookups - Does your caller ID display a call from an area code or a phone number that you don't recognize? Have you ever gotten an email message from an address that you suspected was phony? Have you ever received a snail-mail letter from an address where you don't know anyone? Do reverse lookups of area codes, phone numbers, and email addresses at InfoSpace, and you'll find out where that area code is, who that person is who called you, and who sent you that email or snail mail.

SAVE - Suicide Awareness Voices of Education

Search Engines - Which Are Best? - Have you ever searched for something on the Internet, using a search engine? Some search engines really stink; others are OK, and a few are really great. This article tells you which ones are which.

Switchboard - Look up the telephone numbers of people and businesses; look up people's email addresses; get maps and directions to anywhere you want to go; and read and post messages on their forums.

Virtual Encyclopedia of Health and Nutrition - A free source of information on hundreds of medical topics.

Wikipedia - According to this Web site, "Wikipedia is a multilingual project to create a complete and accurate open content encyclopedia. We started on January 15, 2001 and are currently working on 137318 articles in the English version." (Thanks Jean Levrier!)

Zip Code and Area Code Lookup - Does what it's title says it does.