Zeus of the ‘NetReviews of the Coolest Sites on the Net

Hope everyone had a happy New Years!  I have a feeling 2010 is going to be a good year.  But of course many things, mainly the economy, still has a ways to go.  And unfortunately whenever the economy goes south, crime rates usually increases as a result, and 2009 was no different.  So if you’ve ever wondered what crimes (and how many) have occurred in your city or neighborhood, you may want to check out this cool site.  The site is called CrimeMapping and according to them their goal is to “provide the public with valuable information about recent crime activity in their neighborhood.”  Seems simple enough, but it’s actually quite an ambitious task.

Using a GIS platform to display the crimes on a map, the site right now has information from roughly 100 cities mapped out (the map itself is pretty cool) from all across the U.S.  They use easy to decipher symbols for each of the various crime categories, like Arson, Burglary, Vandalism, etc., so you can quickly tell what crimes were committed at a particular location.  The overall look and feel of the website is really sleek and the navigation and map itself is very intuitive, which I like a lot.  I think CrimeMapping has the potential to be a very powerful resource for the public.  So what do you guys think, would you use this site?

This self-described “computational knowledge engine” can give detailed information on any number of (objective) queries, and can do so just as quickly as any search engine out there today.  The difference is however that instead of ten blue links, users receive the information, or answer, they were looking for.  This sites name, WolframAlpha.com, may be obscure but I believe in the next decade it will be anything but.

The potential uses for this type of technology are limitless.  I think this site and its technology is the first step towards the ultimate goal of ambient findability.  Forty years from now when we look back at the early days of the information age and technology boom, I think that WolframAlpha will be on the short list of important technological advances that changed the course of history.

This site definitely fits the category of a cool website. Now it doesn’t hurt either that I’m a big trance/house/dance fan (which is what the two default videos and playlists are set to). However this site, called Ibizaah! (a fitting name) would still be cool even without those default settings just because of its simplicity. The sites creator Miguel Hernandez said he created the site because he “was annoyed at having to switch between windows when trying to keep the music going at a party.” Problem solved.

Ibizaah not only plays trance and house music but using the ‘Search Videos…’ will play any music video on YouTube. So say you wanted a Pop music mix you could have Beyonce and Shakira’s ‘Beautiful Liar’ on the left and Britney Spears ‘Toxic’ on the right playing simultaneously. How cool is that.

Did I forget to mention this site is free? Yeah it’s completely free to use. So next time you’re throwing a party at your pad, impress your friends and be your own deejay!

Just wanted to write a quick post to let everyone know that you can follow me on both Twitter and Facebook to receive updates of all my latest posts.  If you follow or friend me you will also get tweets and updates with links to cool websites I come across that don’t make it onto the blog, but are still cool or interesting and that I think are worth passing along!

If you would like to suggest a site that you have come across or that you started and run yourself, feel free to email me at admin@zeusofthenet.com or send me a tweet @ZeusoftheNet.  Look forward to the suggestions!

With the proliferation of social networking sites on the Internet these days, I figured why not blog about a site that’s helping to add to that proliferation.  I actually heard about Ning.com a while ago, but was just recently reminded about them again so I decided I would go ahead and share the site with you.  Basically Ning is a cool site let’s you create as well as join new social networks.  You can join any social network that either your friends or fellow Ningers have created, and they work in a very similar manner to Facebook or MySpace.  The main difference is that you only have to create one profile and you can either join other social networks or can start your own with the profile you created.  It’s pretty simple to join, you just have to give your name and email, then a password for your login and that’s it.

There are many ways this site could be used, from personal to professional, for businesses, and pretty much everything in between.  Currently there are social networks for Rottweiler lovers, Shakira fans, and of course Women’s Tackle Football.  So check out Ning and yours could be next!

Full length documentary films have been around just as long as movies themselves have, but it wasn’t until more recently that they started to enjoy some of the same attention that mainstreams movies have enjoyed all along.  This of course changed with several documentaries such as Super Size Me, Bowling for Columbine, and An Inconvenient Truth.  For people out there who enjoy watching documentaries, Topdocumentaryfilms.com is a really cool site that lets you search for and watch over 695 documentaries.  The full length documentaries are embedded from various video sites (such as Google Video, YouTube, etc) and can be viewed on the site itself, or for better viewing, videos can be viewed on full screen mode as well.

If you know the name of the documentary you want to watch you can easily find it by typing it into the search bar in the upper right hand side.  You will then be taken to a results page where the first result will take you to the page where you can then view the full length video.  If you don’t have a particular documentary in mind you also have the option of choosing from any one of the over 20 different categories listed along the right hand side.  If you would like a more narrowed down list, just to the left of ‘Documentary Categories’ is ‘Most Commented Docs’.  This lists the documentaries on the site that have received the most comments from other users.

I really enjoy watching documentaries, so if you enjoy documentaries films as much as I do then you should definitely pay a visit to Topdocumentaryfilms.com.

With the economy getting worse and worse as the months go by, it seems like everyone is now watching every dollar they spend and for good reason. With rent being the largest monthly cost most people incur, I thought this rent calculator site would be of particular interest to those out there that are looking to rent an apartment sometime in the near future.

Rentometer is very basic and easy to use.  First enter in whether you are a tenant or landlord, then enter in your address, followed by how much the monthly rent is currently, and lastly how many bedrooms the apartment has.  You will then be taken to the results page that displays a meter (that looks similar to a speedometer) that gives you a quick visual as to whether the rent is reasonable or overpriced.  At the top of the page it will also tell you what percentage of apartment listings are either priced higher or lower in the surrounding area.  And finally on the bottom right hand side there is a Google Maps mashup that displays other apartments in the area.

This site is a great quick reference tool that can be used by anyone out there that is in the market for an apartment and wants to know what the average rent cost in a particular area is and if they’re getting a good deal.  After all every dollar counts during these tough economic times.

If you’ve ever wanted to create your own cool slideshow of say vacation, birthday, or Christmas party pictures, then Animoto.com is the site for you.  In fact, it’s the site for just about everyone with a digital camera and an Internet connection.  There’s a lot of hype surrounding Animoto these days, which can be daunting for any company but especially so for a web start up.  However this site lives up to it and then some.

For absolutely free, yes that’s right free (once you try it out you’ll be as amazed as I was that it’s free) users can create their own 30-second video, complete with music and everything.  After creating an account, users can then upload pictures (approximately 12-20 for a 30-second video), and can then re-arrange them in the order that they want.  After the order is selected, music for the video can either be upload or chosen from the library of songs on the site.  Next a title and description can be written for the video, and then finally Animoto takes over and does the rest.  A 30-second video takes about 2-3 minutes to be created, and once it’s finished just sit back and enjoy.

Videos can be emailed, downloaded, embedded, or uploaded to YouTube.  Because what would be the point of creating something as cool as your own video slideshow, if you couldn’t share it/show it off to your friends and family?  Well with Animoto you won’t have to worry, because now you can share your pictures in a very cool and unique way.  Bye Bye Boring Slideshow.  Hello Animoto.

Have you ever tried mixing random liquors, only to come up with something that tastes like it came straight from the Nyquil reject batch?  Yea, yea me neither.  But seriously, this is where ExtraTasty and their recipes step in and help make that mixing/experimenting process easier.  With thousands of drink recipes to choose from, and a new drink of the day every day, this site offers liquor lovers many cool drink options.

Doing a random search on ‘tequila’, 271 results are returned, ranging from guava margarita to citrus express to death wish.  Each gives the booze, the mixer, the garnish, and the directions.  Ratings and comments are included with each recipe to give users a better idea of what the drink will be like.  So before you decide to host that next party, be sure to hit up ExtraTasty to get some unique drink ideas.

While this still remains to be seen, the founders of the enormously popularly and widely referenced Wikipedia website, have decided to give it a go.  Their search engine site Wikia Search is similar to the big three (Google, Yahoo, and MSN) in that the results are displayed in the standard fashion, with ads along the top and right hand side.

To test out the relevancy of this newest Google challenger, I did a search on ‘basketball’.  The results are displayed in a manner that is very similar to Google with a few exceptions.  The first result (as I also tested with several other searches) is always a wikipedia article relating to the search query, which makes sense I guess.  Also along the top of the results page, various topics related to the search query are given.  In the case of my ‘basketball’ search, the topics included: shoes, games, drills, court, plays, rules, etc.

Another unique feature of the site is that users never have to go page by page through the results.  As you scroll down the page new results are continually added, so you can continue to just scroll down until you find the result that best matches your search.

Cool features aside, the determining factor of whether or not this search site will be successful lies solely in the relevancy of the search results given.  So far they are doing a pretty good job.  As for being a serious competitor to Google…only time will tell!