7 Handy Sites to Keep… well Handy!
(The lovely featured pic above? Nope, doesn’t relate at all to this post and I surely didn’t snap it. But you gotta admit it’s truly a beauty – freely gleaned from CC0 Public Domain, no questions asked. But it’s so very stunning I can’t help but attribute it here to the lovely photographer Alex Koch).
To those who’ve been hanging around these digital TL halls awhile, you’re probably acutely aware that most anything goes here, and you never know what I might post. Oh sure, for nearly six full years it’s been mostly about my main squeeze T.R.A.V.E.L. And since flying the U.S. of A. Coop in 2011, likewise I’ve of course shared various ‘n sundry posts on what it’s like to be an expat and live for months/years in (we’re now up to 3 different) foreign lands.
But you also may recall my occasional rants (here, here, and oh yes, most recently here) plus of course my reliably frequent mishaps (like this, and oh my no way will we ever forget – that fiasco).
I’ve also tried my hand at series posts. But with the exception of Foto Flip Friday which I managed to keep up with every blessed week for over a year, I’ve never been much use when it comes to reliability.
So while I’m tempted here today to make this “Handy Sites” thing a regular TL feature (for g-knows I spend boatloads of time checking out all manner of fascinating digitized trivia), don’t worry. This will likely be the first and last of its kind here.
But meanwhile, I think you’ll find at least one or two of the following mish-mash of sites interesting, if not absolutely essential to your future existence:
| 1. To quickly grab the user manual for most any and all your appliances and electronics, skip on over to: manualslib.com |
| 2. A site that sweetly allows you to create a print-friendly copy of any webpage – sans the acky ads and whatnot. Even better, it gives you a preview where you can delete whatever extraneous items on the page further. Most aptly named: printfriendly.com. |
| 3. And for those like me – ever enchanted with words (and whose favorite all-time book is a thesaurus) – a most interesting site that spits out the entomology of any word: etymonline.com
Curiously – when I pecked in the simple word “travel” – I learned that the term goes all the way back to the 14th century, and initially was derived from the word “travailen” (i.e. “to make a journey”, but also “to TOIL OR WORK”). Granted, my style of travel is seldom a walk in the park, but I’d certainly not call it grueling toil! |
 4. If you’ve got a blog or website, then you’re likely already familiar with the digital affliction known as “Font Fanaticism” – the unbridled preoccupation with ever new fonts. I’ve lost count of the many fonts I’ve collected over the years, but I still run across some new script hybrid or smudgy new font variation and I simply can’t rest until I know the name of it.
So for my fellow font OC kin out there – here’s a handy site where you can upload a picture of any font, and it will search its huge font database to find a match: (cleverly named) WhatTheFont??? |
| 5. And just for sheer fun… (a.k.a. ˙˙˙unɟ ɹǝǝɥs ɹoɟ ʇsnظ) – we have FlipText.org
You’re welcome. |
| 6. If you’re like me, I can never noodle out the time span between 2 dates (or more like… let’s just say I don’t want to do the hand-math). Thus for swiftly figuring out such curious conundrums, try this site – brought to you by those clever folks at TimeAndDate.com
btw, I quickly used it just now to calculate the precise number of days I’ve been pecking here on TravelnLass (since December 1, 2010): 1,984 days! (geez, I need a vacation!) 😉 |
| 7. And finally, I would be remiss here were I to neglect dropping a travel-centric linky to aid and abet you in your own travels. While I use a wide variety of airfare sites to whittle my air tickets down to as cheapo as possible, I’ve long favored Skyscanner as one of my foremost go-to’s.
Indeed, even when I don’t (yet) have a specific destination in mind, I love to play around with Skyscanner’s nifty “Go Anywhere” map where I can slide the maximum price (of say, anywhere on globe for under $1,000) to and fro to dream for hours on end: Go Anywhere map |
Seriously. Where would you most like to go for under $1,000???
Now what about you? I’d love to know what your handiest go-to site is.
About the Author
Dyanne Off-the-beaten-path travel is my passion,and I’ve always lived life “like-a-kid-in-a-candy-store” – eager to sample as many flavors as I can. Indeed, my life motto has long been: This ain’t a dress rehearsal, folks!
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Off-the-beaten-path travel is my passion, and I’ve always lived life “like a kid in a candy store” – eager to sample as many flavors as I can. Indeed, my life motto has long been:
Thanks for the tips! Love skyscanner (always a good daydream if nothing else) but the one that’s really captured my interest here is etymonline.com . Looks like I could while away a bit of time on this website!
I KNOW Anita – aren’t words, their origins, etc. fascinating? It gets even more interesting when you start to learn a 2nd language. And especially – when you TEACH your native language. I’m frequently astounded at the many grammar exceptions, the strange phrasal verbs that make no logical sense, etc. of my mother tongue. Pity my poor students that have to somehow make sense of it all.
Though… that said, I dare say it’s the same in most any language – Spanish idioms aren’t exactly a walk in the park either. 🙂
Being retired, I’m flexible on the ‘when’ of travel. I like to avoid high season, too hot and too cold. For climate, I check http://www.weather2travel.com/climate-guides/ for averages and Weatherspark.com for variability around averages.
Except for point to point air travel, my first stop for how do I get from point A to point B is rome2rio.com. It’s only as accurate as the sites it scrapes, but it’s a start – and a good one for links to sites of train and bus companies serving the route.
Yes, yes, Bill – rome2rio is great! I have it open on a tab these days constantly. Yes, great for a quick look on approx. bus and train hours. I’m astounded at the breadth, efficiency and economy of public transport in the Balkans.