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Job-Related
www.artsource.com
Are you happy at your job? C'mon, really? Is it time to
start polishing up that portfolio? Or maybe you're looking
for some new blood for your firm? Check out ArtSource, an
agency specializing in placement for digital-media artists.
You can browse portfolios of designers or submit your own
portfolio.
cuttingedgejobs.com
Cutting Edge Personnel is a placement service designed to
address the needs of employers and job seekers throughout
the New York City area. The industries served include, but
are not limited to: Advertising, Graphics, New Media,
Investment Banking, and Computer software and hardware
firms. Cutting Edge services all levels of the business
organization, from the executive suites to production areas
and studio departments, from entry-level situations to
positions requiring seasoned pros.
www.creativecentral.com
Well, we still think that the HOW Job Bank is the
best place to find the latest job listings, but when you're
looking for a job or new employee, it's best not to put your
proverbial eggs all in one basket. Creative Central is a
site listing job openings for creative professionals,
resources, events and more. Although they're a little light
on the listings right now, give them time&emdash;they're
new.
www.homefair.com
Are you planning a move any time soon? If so, you need to
know how the cost of living in your new locale will affect
your asking salary. This Web site allows you to enter your
present salary in your present location and computes what
that translates to in a new city. Will your hearty Des
Moines paycheck be dwarfed in New York City? Find out here.
www.wertco.com
Wert & Co. is a New York-based international creative
recruiting firm that just launched a new Flash-enhanced Web
site, designed by i/o 360. Here, you can browse job
listings, share overall career goals and submit your resume.
You never know!
www.rga-joblink.com
Newspaper Want Ads are so passe! To stay on top of the
newest job offerings or recruit top talent to your firm,
check out RGA-joblink online. You’ll find
listings for interesting design jobs nationwide. Also, Hot
Newslink provides industry-relevant information and
International Hotlink links you to business options from
around the world.
www.sourceweb.com
Finding new freelance talent at your firm shouldn’t be
a chore. At Sourceweb, you can search the portfolios
of a variety of photographers and illustrators, sampling
work from creatives across the nation. If you’re a
freelancer, check out how to submit samples of your own
work.
www.portfolios.com
Portfolios Online provides a comprehensive index of
portfolios from a variety of different creative
professionals, including photographers, illustrators
and&emdash;yes, graphic designers. Look up a specific image
in Image Search or find out how to submit items from your
own portfolio.
Fun Stuff
www.streamweb.net/skov/fools.html
You can easily become the most annoying person in your
office with the help of this site. A collection of
downloadable Mac-only practical jokes will allow you to
program a Mac to burp when a disk is ejected, remove all the
vowels from a text file and make your Mac sniff every few
minutes (perfect for inspiring paranoia). Try doing that
with a PC!
www.terraserver.microsoft.com
Microsoft Terraserver is a site that you don't know whether
to marvel at or fear. This site includes an online database
of aerial photography—zoom in on your hometown and
see if you can spy on your neighbors. Welcome to the "Truman
Show."
www.nationalgeographic.com/voices
Do you wish you were scaling mountains, charming snakes or
swimming with sharks instead of doing your desk job? Steal
away to National Geographic's Voices while the boss isn't
looking. This site provides you with a behind-the-scenes
look at how National Geographic film crews pull together
their shows, with audio and video technology to enhance your
journey.
www.griffinandsabine.com
Ever since Griffin & Sabine rocketed to the New York
Times Bestseller list, it has gleaned a loyal legion of fans
intrigued by the powerful connection and correspondence
between the two title characters. This beautifully designed
site offers depth to the story and more morsels for fans of
author Nick Bantock.
www.onelist.com
Mailing lists are an incredibly powerful tool, whether
you're a host or recipient. ONElist is a site that allows
you to search for mailing lists to subscribe to according to
your interests, or even start your own list for free.
www.spinner.com
Wish your workday came with a soundtrack? Now it can. Put
that LAN connection to work with Spinner.com. This site
features more than 100 music channels (including more than
130,000 songs) that you can use as your desktop jukebox,
through a downloaded player. You may want to check and see
if they have "9 to 5."
www.e-thepeople.com
Got a bone to pick? Before your anger wanes as you search
for the appropriate target of your ire, check out E-The
People. This free Web service helps you find appropriate
contacts through a keyword search or through categories. If
the appropriate contact doesn't have an email address, E-The
People will convert your concern to a fax. If you're really
mad, you can start a petition and recruit others to sign it.
Activism has never been so fast and easy.
come.to/20Q
Animal, vegetable or mineral? Twenty Questions is a site
that bills itself as "an experiment in artificial
intelligence." It works just like the simple game we all
know well—you think of something then, by asking a
series of questions, the CGI-based program will try to guess
what it is. Clever and a bit creepy, it's worth a look.
www.fallinpa.com
Think of it as atonement for months of stifling summer heat
or the wicked winter to come. Either way, there's nothing
that beats the visual feast of changing leaves in the
Northeast. The state of Pennsylvania has cooked up a rather
slick Web site celebrating the most beautiful fall months.
This site includes 29 different driving tours, Web cams and
hiking and biking guides.
www.scour.net
So you really want to find an .aif sound file of "Gettin'
Jiggy With It" to embed on your site. Better yet, you need
streaming video of Clinton's latest confession to accompany
your site's downloadable copy of the Starr Report. Try
Scour.net, a search engine dedicated exclusively to finding
audio, video, images & animation on theWeb.
scorpio.idl.com.au/home/spun/webdweller/
What would "everyman" look like? Check out this Web project
to find out. The site designers ask visitors to submit
digital pictures of their own mugs. The pictures are then
morphed into one bland face. Browse the gallery to see who
has sent pictures of their faces. Maybe you'll even see
someone you know!
www.rockhall.com
If you can't make it to Cleveland to tour the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame yourself, you can still take a virtual tour
from your desktop. This site is incredibly comprehensive,
giving information on each exhibit in the museum and
commemorating the anniversaries of rock history with the
current date. Visitors have an opportunity to talk back in
the discussion areas and even search to find out what rock
stars are born on their birthday. Rock on.
www.exploratorium.edu/ronh/solar_system/
Just how big is the universe? This site will give you an
approximation in whatever terms you specify. Enter a size
for the sun, like an inch or even a mile. The site will
generate the resulting relative distances to the planets.
Very cool interactive site.
www.smokeybear.com
Lest you forget, only you can prevent forest fires. If you
need to be reminded, visit Smokey the Bear's home page,
designed by R/GA Interactive. You can participate in some
fun interactive games, experience some cool animation, and
get a look at a site that really presents its content in an
intelligent, compelling way.
www.rotodesign.com/index.html
Patrick Broderick is a San Francisco-based designer with a
lot of time on his hands, as evidenced by his
Rotodesign site. This is to your advantage, since he
has amassed a a collection of hilarious, lighthearted online
folly. Included are fictional failed magazines
(Here’s Alan Thicke! and Heroin
Aficionado) and the cartoon adventures of Billy
Precocious, the child surgeon.
www.ultimatetaxi.com
If you don’t think the Web’s reach is pervasive,
check out the site for The Ultimate Taxi. This high-wired
cab has a TaxiCam (check out who’s in the back seat), a
chat room, message boards, and emails, all brought to you by
the hyper-connected cabbie, Jon Barnes. If you find yourself
in Aspen, CO, make plans for Jon to pick you up at the
airport.
www.kkcltd.com/thepit.html
Test your copywriting ability compliments of the Kranzler
Kingsley Communications. Try out their World’s Worst
Headline Game, a competition for the worst headline possible
and Jingleberries, a jingle-writing contest. If you
haven’t already made the foray into advertising, maybe
you’ll be discovered here.
www.cool404.com
Don’t you hate those “404 File Not Found”
error messages? A select few Web developers have designed
clever, fun, creative takes on these messages—Cool
404 is dedicated to celebrating these pioneers. Browse
the archives for past cool 404s or submit your own
favorites.
www.dorsai.org/~jkurland/thedottedline.html
The premise of the ScrollBar Animations site is as
simple as a flip book—scroll down the page and see
simple animation created with a series of dots and bubbles.
Although it may not be the most useful site you’ll
visit, it features a fun approach to animation and the
simplicity of digital art.
www.jodi.org
What is www.jodi.org? If you find out, be sure to let
us know. HOW has included this spot in the Top 10
because its perplexing nature makes it an enigma to Web
watchers. Images rise randomly to the fore—you have
to roll your cursor over the whole screen to find the next
puzzling link. If entirely useless, it is quite fascinating.
www.posttool.com/playpage/
The folks at Post Tool Design have cooked up a fun and
whimsical “Play Page” using Shockwave to carry
their folly. Included is a sound/sketch doodle pad (where
you can mix shapes and sound together), Pong and much more.
www.testtube.com
Testtube.com is a curious Web site with a funky home
page that invites you to offer your opinion on a variety of
topics. Go to Taste Tester to voice your opinion about the
featured subject and see how “average” you are
compared to the general public. The philosophy of this site
is that if you offer something of yourself, you might
stumble upon a person, object or idea you’ve been
seeking.
www.trivial.net/
So you think you’re a wiz when it comes to the Web? Put
your knowledge to the test at Trivial Net. An
interactive Web game (with multiple-choice questions) will
test your skills and rate you accordingly (everything from
“Mad Hacker” to “Slightly Nerdy”). If
you like what you see, sign up for a free mailing list that
e-mails you one trivia question every weekday.
www.donsbosspage.com/
Surf in peace with a little help from Don’s Boss
Page. This clever site opens with an innocent and
industrious-looking spreadsheet. Scroll down and you’ll
find “stealth surfing” tips and an essential
downloadable “panic window” that can be called up
at a moment’s notice, lest your boss catch you visiting
the Jenny McCarthy Fan Club site on company time. Your
secret is safe with Don.
www.infobahn.com/pages/anagram.html
Anagrams are pretty much the opposite of pictograms, but at
the Anagram Insanity site, they’re pretty fun.
Simply type in a few words and Anagram Insanity will
come up with hundreds of anagrams from those letters
instantly! Cool stuff (locust off)!
www.unitedmedia.com/comics/
If you’re used to getting your news from the Web, but
miss browsing through the newspaper comics, check out The
Comic Strip. You’ll find more than a dozen popular
local comics, and can search through the archives for a
Dilbert strip to print out and pin up in your cubicle!
www.cruel.com
Built on the principle that “there’s got to be
something wrong with a medium that loves itself as much as
the Web does,” Web developer Rogers Cadenhead brings
you daily links to the world of the “perturbed, peeved,
pensive and postal” with Cruel.com.
www.adaweb.com/~GroupZ/LOVE
Are you looking for love? You’ll certainly find it at
LOVE, a series of pages in celebration of this
much-ballyhooed emotion. This site is broken down into seven
different series of seven pages each—enjoy the design
as you navigate through the many interpretations of love
shown here. Like finding true love, half the fun is the
journey.
www.feedmag.com/
Feed is an online magazine that explores everything
from the World Series to serial killers. The home page
proclaims, “On a planet of geeks, interface becomes a
way to define oneself,” the guiding editorial principle
of this magazine. If you’re looking for interesting
perspectives on a variety of topics, check this out.
prominence.com/java/poetry/
Don’t you love those cool refrigerator magnets that
allow you to construct elaborate, beautiful poems just
before dinner? Well contain the poet within no longer:
Prominence Dot Com gives you a screenful of
Java-based “magnets” to play with at your leisure.
You can even send in a screen shot to the Web developers
once your masterpiece is complete.
www.suck.com/
Suck is a site that garners a lot of attention for
its creative, intelligent writing. But what about its
design: centered, narrow columns of text, images popping up
between paragraphs and scattered navigation running down
either side. Does interacting with the text make it more
compelling to read? Is the placement of images an annoyance?
Put your creative judgment to work, because no site’s
too touted to be doubted.
www.radio-ranch.com
The Web site for Dick Orkin’s Radio
Ranch—creators of advertising radio spots, proves
that just because you’re in the audio business
doesn’t mean you can’t create a visually exciting
promotional vehicle. Follow Bradley, the Radio Ranch horse,
as he gallops along, guiding you through different areas on
the site. A truly impressive self-promotional tool.
cool.infi.net
If you’re the type who’s forever in search of the
next cool thing, check out the Cool Site of the Day.
Here, you can access daily updates of what’s cool and
new on the Web. If you have some catching up to do on
what’s hot, try delving into the cool site archives.
www.wognum-art.se/Brainwave
After hours of Web-surfing, you feel a little burnt out.
Well then, there’s no better time to rejuvenate your
brain than with Brainwave’s challenging puzzles!
Answer all 10 puzzles correctly, and you can win
Brainwave’s “Top 5% Brain” award.
www.theonion.com
Who needs CNN? All their news is just depressing, anyway.
Here’s a look at some UN-politically correct, fictional
news stories that are guaranteed to have you laughing
instead of grimacing at the tongue-in-cheek articles from
The Onion. Past headlines include “Dalai Lama
Decks Photographer in Disco Melee” and “Clinton
Deploys Vowels to Bosnia.”
www.leary.com
Turn on, sign in and tune out. The 60s aren’t dead and
neither is Timothy Leary—they’re both alive and
well and living on the Timothy Leary Home Page. In
addition to being a subject of pop culture, this site boasts
innovative design, with a graphics-intense animated intro.
You can also search the archives for information about this
legend, or take a virtual tour of his home.
www.haring.com
Keith Haring’s work has inspired many up-and-coming
illustrators and designers. At his memorial Web site, you
can learn everything you ever wanted to know about Keith
Haring and his art, learn about the charitable projects and
events planned by the Haring Foundation and even pick up
some buttons, caps or T-shirts from the Pop Shop in New
York.
www.bezerk.com
If you think you DO know jack, you’d better check with
this site first. You Don’t Know Jack is an
online version of the popular CD-ROM trivia game on a host
of outrageous topics. You’ll see just how much you have
to learn.
dictionaries.travlang.com/
Are you planning some international travel in the hopes of
expanding your global clientele? Only geeks carry around
translation dictionaries. If you want to converse with the
natives, visit Travelang’s online translation
dictionary site. Here, you can translate phrases into
English, French, Dutch, German, Spanish and even Finnish.
While you’re here, search for data regarding maps,
hotels, directions and more in your destination.
www.slugfest.com/
Clients getting you down? Tired of self-indulgent
celebrities flooding the media? Take out your aggressions in
Celebrity Slugfest, a cool Shockwave game that’s
sure to lower your blood pressure. Select from a host of
worthy candidates (categorized as either bullies, meanies or
wusses) and take your best shot. Tempting choices include
O.J. Simpson, Rush Limbaugh, Tori Spelling and more.
www.gamespot.com
If your favorite way to wind down after a long day in front
of the computer is a rousing game of DOOM, you just may be a
computer-game junkie. Feed your addiction at
Gamespot—you’ll find reviews of just
about every game available, recommendations for your next
purchase, downloadable demos from your favorite
manufacturers, shareware and more.
www.askjeeves.com/
Got a compelling question and don’t know where to turn?
Go to Ask Jeeves—this know-it-all can tell you
everything from “Who is Sandra Bullock?” to the
more existential “What is the meaning of life? ”
Jeeves searches multiple search engines to find out what
sites may have the answers to your questions. While
you’re there, you might want to ask “What’s
for dinner tonight? ”
www.wrinkle2.lava.net
More than 100 photographers from around the world
participated in an innovative QTVR Web project called
Wrinkle 2: A Global Moment in Time. For this, each
photographer took panoramic shots of their locale at the
same moment, creating a VR snapshot of the world during a
particular time. Before you go, make sure you have QuickTime.
adage.com/news_and_features/special_reports/commercials
Whether you love them or hate them, commercials are a
powerful consumer tool and a sublime influence on our
vernacular. Advertising Age has compiled a list of
the 50 all-time best commercials and included them here for
your viewing pleasure, organized by year. Good luck finding
"Where's the Beef?"
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