I can honestly say that, every day, I receive many E-mails from readers who offer tips, suggestions, or pointers for outstanding online resources. I collect all I can; gather, collate, and group them; then send the information back out in various columns and newsletters. But there's only one of me and many of you, and some excellent sites see daylight only slowly or, alas, not at all.

I'd like to remedy that today, by making this column a truly interactive one. Below, I'll list some (actually, 85!) of the very best help, reference, and test sites I know. In fact, many of these sites are on my own "Favorites/Bookmarks" lists--the ones I routinely turn to when I'm stumped by a technical question.

Although I hope the list will be helpful to you in its own right, it will be even better if you use InformationWeek's associated Listening Post forum to add your own nominees to the collection of great sites. By the time we're done, we should have an absolutely awesome aggregate list of good and proven sites and resources for tracking down and solving just about any kind of tech problem any of us might run into!

My one request and caveat is that you use the subject line in your posts to help identify the kind of site or resource you're discussing. With accurate subject lines, we'll all be better able to search for and find the type of information we're seeking. Thanks!

I've organized my personal favorites in these categories:

• General reference: dictionaries, encyclopedia, etc.
• General problem solving and troubleshooting references
• Sci-tech news sources
• Reliable security info/research
• Accurate and timely virus info
• Info on identifying hoaxes, myths, chain letters, et al
• Conversions (e.g. English/metric)
• Quick and dirty online translation tools
• HTML validation and related tools
• Browser problem/connection-speed analysis
• Online security tests
• General system health tests
• Search Fred's published tips, tricks, etc.
• Searching further afield

This is a personal list, so it's by no means a comprehensive roll call of every good site in every category. My list is just a starting point. That's where you come in. Please check it out, and add your own via the link at the bottom of the page!

General reference: dictionaries, encyclopedia, etc.

• OneLook (meta search): http://www.freetune.com/most_popular_pages.htm
• Britannica Online: http://www.britannica.com
• Many library tools: http://www.itools.com/research-it and http://www.libraryspot.com
• TechWeb TechEncyclopedia: http://www.techweb.com/encyclopedia
• Tech glossary: http://support.microsoft.com/support/glossary
• The Computing Research Repository: http://xxx.lanl.gov/archive/cs/intro.html
• Slang/jargon lookup: http://www.sabram.com/site/slang.html
• Acronym Finder: http://www.acronymfinder.com
• Meta-reference (many tools): http://www.columbia.edu/acis/bartleby/bartlett
• Thesaurus: http://www.thesaurus.com
• FAQ Finder (may be temporarily offline): http://ps.superb.net/FAQ
• Grammar/syntax; Common Errors In English: http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors

General problem solving and troubleshooting references

• General Windows support info from Microsoft (all Windows versions): http://support.microsoft.com and http://search.support.microsoft.com/kb/c.asp?fr=0&SD=GN&LN=EN-US
• Patches/downloads (Microsoft): http://corporate.windowsupdate.microsoft.com/en/default.asp and http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/search.asp
• Feature articles that lead to many other resources and sites
  • Hardware: http://content.techweb.com/winmag/library/1998/1001/fea0045.htm
  • Software: http://content.techweb.com/winmag/library/1998/1001/fea0045.htm
  • Win98Bugs And Fixes: http://content.techweb.com/winmag/library/1998/1201/cov0066.htm
  • 10 Ways To Make Win98 Run Better: http://content.techweb.com/ winmag/windows/ features/98runbetter/05.htm
  • 10 Ways To Make WinME Run Better: http://content.techweb.com/ winmag/windows/features/ merunbetter/default.htm
  • Hardware/software diagnostic tools and techniques: http://content.techweb.com/ winmag/library/1998/ 1001/fea0045g.htm
  • Resolving version conflicts: http://content.techweb.com/ winmag/library/1998/ 1201/ana0010.htm

Sci-tech news and info

• TechWeb: http://techweb.com
• InformationWeek: http://www.informationweek.com
• Slashdot: http://slashdot.org
• Geeknews: http://www.geeknews.net
• Multiple news feeds (near real time): http://www.newsnow.co.uk/ cgi/NewsNow/NewsFeed.htm? Section=Technology
• Wired: http://www.wired.com/news
• NewsBytes: http://www.newsbytes.com
• Silicon Valley news: http://www.siliconvalley.com
• EE Times: http://www.eetimes.com
• New Scientist (United Kingdom): http://www.newscientist.com
• Science News: http://www.sciencenews.org
• BBC Sci-Tech News: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech
• MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.com/news/TECH_Front.asp?a
• Scientific American: http://www.sciam.com
• SciTech Daily Review: http://www.scitechdaily.com

Security info and research

• AntiOnline: http://www.antionline.com
• Network Security Library: http://secinf.net
• Proxys-4-All: http://proxys4all.cgi.net (under redesign; may be temporarily unavailable)
• SANS (System Administration, Networking, and Security): http://www.sans.org/newlook/home.htm
• Security encyclopedia: http://www.itsecurity.com

Virus info

• Symantec: http://securityresponse.symantec.com

• Symantec antivirus research center: http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/index.html
• McAfee virus hoax list: http://vil.mcafee.com/hoax.asp
• Department of Energy Computer Incident Advisory Capability: http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACHoaxes.html
• Debunking online and E-mail hoaxes: http://www.kumite.com/myths
• The urban legends Web site: http://www.urbanlegends.com
• Urban Legends Reference Pages: http://www.snopes.com
• Datafellows Hoax Warnings: http://www.Europe.Datafellows.com/news/hoax.htm

Conversions

• Many converters (e.g. English/metric): http://www.mikesart.net/giantglossarycom/Converters_and_Calculators/all_in_one

• Babelfish: http://babelfish.altavista.com

HTML validation and related tools

• Free online HTML validation (Australia): http://www.unimelb.edu.au/ html-check/validation-form.html
• Check cascading style sheets: http://www.htmlhelp.com/tools/csscheck
• HTML analysis: http://watson.addy.com
• Meta site for World Wide Web Consortium (includes some free validation services): http://www.w3.org

Browser and connection speed issues

• BrowserTune can help with UI issues, browser issues, connectivity and throughput issues, and lots more having to do with the Internet, the Web, intranets, general connectivity, and all the related technologies: http://browsertune.com
• Also, the top four reasons for browser instability are discussed here: http://content.techweb.com/winmag/library/1999/0701/ana0008.htm

Other connection-speed tests:

• DSL Reports: http://www.dslreports.com/stest (You'll find a customized variant of the DSL Reports test at http://www.dslky.com/speedtest; it may be available when the DSL Reports servers are offline or bogged down.)
• Test My Speed: http://www.testmyspeed.com/howto.htm
• PC PitStop: http://www.pcpitstop.com/internet/default.asp
• BandWidthPlace: http://bandwidthplace.com/speedtest/speedtest_add.html
• MSN test: http://computingcentral.msn.com/internet/speedtest.asp
• Toast Net: http://www.toast.net/performance
• Modem speed tests: http://homepage.eircom.net/~leslie/testpage.htm
• U.K.-based bandwidth test: http://www.zdnet.co.uk/misc/band-test

Online security tests

• Online antivirus test: http://www.pcpitstop.com/antivirus/default.asp
• DSL Reports port probe: http://www.dslreports.com/secureme
• Steve Gibson's Shield's Up: http://grc.com
• Vulnerabilities.org: http://www.vulnerabilities.org
• HackerWhacker: http://www.hackerwhacker.com
• My Security: http://www.securityspace.com/smysecure
• Free ibh Online NetBIOS Vulnerability Check: http://www.it-sec.de/vulchke.html

General system health

• PC PitStop: http://www.pcpitstop.com/pcpitstop/default.asp

• Search all of Fred's newer (2001+) InformationWeek columns http://www.informationweek.com/LP/columnists/fredlanga.html
• Search all of Fred's older (pre-2001) InformationWeek and TechWeb columns: http://www.informationweek.com/langaletter/archives.htm
• Search all back issues of Fred's WinMag columns: http://content.techweb.com/winmag/columns/explorer/backissu.htm
• Search all back issues of the LangaList newsletter: http://www.langa.com/search.htm

Further afield

Since that article was published, Google has emerged as probably the best all-around search engine. For more info, see http://search.atomz.com/search/?sp-q=google&sp-a=0008002a-sp00000000.

One of the neatest things about Google is that you can focus its impressive power on almost any site, in effect replacing the search engine on that site with Google's own. You can do this via Google's advanced features or by appending the search term "site:" to the end of your Google search, followed by the target site's URL.

For example, if you find the Microsoft KnowledgeBase unwieldy, you can use Google instead to mine the KnowledgeBase. Say you wanted to look up Microsoft KnowledgeBase article Q266709 in a hurry, via Google: You can do this in one step thus: http://www.google.com/search?q=Q266709+site:support.microsoft.com. For other searches at support.microsoft.com, you'd replace the "Q266709" with any other search term; string together multiple search terms with plus signs. For searches of other sites, simply replace the "support.microsoft.com" with whatever site interests you--say, "www.informationweek.com."

Now It's Your Turn

I hope my list is just the start of much more. Please dig out your favorite search/research/information/test sites to add to the mix and help create a truly a definitive list of outstanding online resources. See you in the discussion area.