Brought to Me By… Part II

After I wrote last week paying tribute to people I get ideas and inspiration from, I realized I needed to keep telling you about other borrowees as well. So in the space below and in future columns, I will revisit this topic as I bring you useful new-ish sites.

ieSpell.com: Sure you know about the spellchecker on Word (a feature that I think too many people rely on), but this is a spell checker for online forms, web-based e-mail messages, blogs, etc. And the price is right: free for personal use. Works only on Internet Explorer.
BROUGHT TO ME BY: Larry Larsen, Poynter.org’s multimedia editor, who seems to live online. I also heard it the other day on Kim Komando’s radio show. You might want to sign up for her free “Cool Site of the Day” and “Tip of the Day” e-mail lists. By the way, is that a great name for a computer show host or what?

AltaVista Toolbar: I am a fan of the Google Toolbar, which I use dozens of times a day, every day (read Jon Dube’s review of version 2.0). But you might want to try AltaVista’s new toolbar, which has a couple of features Google’s doesn’t, including the ability to translate sites into other languages. It won’t replace Google’s toolbar as my default, but is worth having on my browser.
BROUGHT TO ME BY: Gary Price and his ResourceShelf.com (which I wrote about in 2003). See Gary’s review of the AltaVista Toolbar.

In my column last week, I wrote about broadcast writing coach Mervin Block’s writing tips. I forgot to say that if you are interested in improving your writing skills, you should sign up for his free, low-volume list by sending a blank message to mervinblock-subscribe@yahoogroups.com or merblo@aol.com (tips for print folks, too!).

Have a site you want to recommend? Write to poynter@sree.net (with your name and affiliation; I prefer to hear about sites you are not connected with).

Sree’s Links:

• SreeTips.com
  
• Smarter Surfing Links
  
• Tech Guru Segments & message board
  
• SreeTip: Things You Didn’t Know Google Does
  
• Subscribe to Sree’s Monthly Newsletter (e-mail)