This edition of Friday Fun Links is continuing the week’s look at great Back to School websites for college students. In this list you’ll find links to some of the sites I really liked but just didn’t have time to write a full review on.

In fact, in putting this list together I realized how many great college sites there are and for that reason have decided to leave this as an open list, where I’ll be continually adding new sites. As always if you have any recommendations please leave them in the comments below.

Books

ecampus.com – buy and sell textbooks, supplies and more.

TextbooksRus.com – buy new and used books for cheap.

CampusBooks4Less.com – price comparison shopping for textbooks, finds the best prices online.

Chegg.com – save money by renting your textbooks and they’ll plant a tree for each book you rent.

School Loans

FAFSA – the official federal student aid website.

Finaid.org – loan information, applications, tools and forms all in one place.

SchoolLoans.com – compare all types of loans to find the right one for you.

School Loans Consolidation Guide – important information on consolidating your student loans.

Blogs

CollegeCandy.com – a college-aged blog aimed mostly at the girls.

Keg of Wisdom – humorous thoughts about life and college.

Kill Jill Goes to College – an interesting look at handling college life.

Pimp Dorm – how pimp is your dorm?

Surviving College Life – a guide to surviving college.

Online Magazines

College Humor – funny videos, funny pictures, funny links!

Miscellaneous

Campusfood.com – order food online and wait while it’s delivered from your favorite local restaurant directly to your dorm room.

Dormgear.net – dorm room accessories, decorations and party supplies.

Dorm-Life.com – an internet television show about life in the dorms.

Rate My Professors – write and read reviews of professors at your college.

Rentometer.com – check how your rent compares to other similar places nearby.

Lists from Other Sites

Campus Grotto Textbook Links – a dozen or so top places to shop for textbooks.

10 College Websites from DormDelicious.com – a general list of must use sites for the college student.

50 Notetaking Tools – a great collection of applications to help you take and organize class notes.

50 Mind Mapping Tools – a huge selection of brainstorming tools that can be useful for non-students as well.

Lifehacker Back to School Series – an awesome series of back to school posts on an awesome website for getting things done.

I’ll continue adding to this site as I find great additions. As always the comments are open for suggestions.

Site Description

As web applications and social networks continue to grow and become mainstream, more and more employers are using them and Google to scan candidates. It’s easy to have questionable content posted either on one of your accounts or one belonging to your friends. Often that questionable content is enough to remove you from consideration for a job.

Luckily, the fellas over at Brand-Yourself.com have come up with a service to combat that problem. Their website takes an aggressive approach towards improving your online presence by helping you create content that reflects a better side than that Facebook photo of you doing a twelve foot beer bong in college. How exactly that’s done is pretty impressive. Equally impressive is how well they explain their service. They have a video that shows the process in detail and it’s so good I decided to save myself some time and post it below.

About Brand-Yourself.com

The Brand-Yourself team, led by Pete Kistler, is compiled of Syracuse University students and recent graduates. They joined together with the intention of designing “tools to establish, track, manage and improve our web presence.” The result is a web service that is effective and simple to use. They have already garnered numerous awards and acknowledgements including a nomination as one of five finalists for Entrepreneur Magazines 2009 College Entrepreneur of the Year.

What I Liked

This website will only continue to gain momentum as it becomes evident that your internet footprint can be a critical factor in whether or not you get a job. I like that Pete and company have found an untapped need and are well on their way toward servicing it. When the rest of the world catches up they’ll have a great jump on the competition.

The part that I’m most impressed with is the ease of use. Not everyone has the technical skills necessary to start a webpage on their own. With Brand-Yourself you don’t need to do so. Anyone with the basic skills to write an email or create a Word document can excel using the tools offered at Brand-Yourself. The interface is a clone of WordPress without the need for servers and hosting plans. The result is a well-crafted webpage that reflects the user in a professional light.

A number of high quality tools are available for your use once you sign up for an account. The Web Presence Breakdown organizes your online appearance by finding your social networking accounts and linking them together. This allows you to easily monitor how they look to a potential employer from one simple location. The Breadcrumb Tracker collects all the digital snippets that are associated with you online. If someone’s left a comment about you somewhere, the Breadcrumb Tracker will find it and you can monitor how it affects your professional appearance.

The site is continuing to grow as new tools are developed. The Recommendation Engine is a yet to be released tool that uses your skills and expertise to determine the next step toward developing a noteworthy web presence. Brand-Yourself likens it to your own personal career coach.

Another tool that is coming soon is the Hireability Monitor. This tool notifies you immediately in the event of a change in web presence. By doing so you’re able to make the necessary adjustments to be sure you’re image is not damaged too badly.

Because you can only do so much to control how others portray you online, the best way to combat negative content is to overwhelm it with positive stuff. By creating a website at your personal domain you’re able to direct people to it, showing them the side of you you want them to see. When you give them a place to go to find good information it limits the likelihood they’ll look around long enough to find the bad stuff.

What I Didn’t Like

There’s not too much to dislike from a concept perspective. The idea is right on track with addressing the most common internet problem currently experienced by young people – a damaged image due to negative web content. Using Brand-Yourself will definitely help you get that image better under control.

There is a small cost associated with this service (3 months/$34.95 $24.95), which I think is both fair and affordable. The hangup for me comes with my being conditioned to receiving many online services for free. I don’t think they’re wrong for charging for a service that most cannot replicate on their own, however I can see the costs to be a small barrier to entry for some people. The alternative option is them putting adds on your personal website, which undoubtedly will take away from your site’s professionalism.

My suggestion, in case they’re listening (and care what I think), is to have both a free and paid version. Currently, you can register for a trial account, which of course they hope will lead you to purchasing a paid account. The free plan I propose is the same as the current trial plan, only with sponsored ads on the personal webpages and limited use of tools. I wouldn’t change the paid version. Eventually many users would see the value and seriously consider an upgrade. Even those that didn’t would still bring in ad revenue. The end result would be a larger user base and mailing list to solicit future sales.

Of course that’s my outsider’s opinion. I’m sure they wouldn’t be getting the attention they have from Entrepreneur Magazine if they hadn’t done their research and carefully thought things out. Despite my ramble on their pricing strategy, I still think they’re onto something and can find no real fault with what they’re doing.

The Final Word

For both the Brand-Yourself.com crew and young professionals concerned about their image, this website is a winner. If you’re someone who is concerned what potential employers might think if they Googled your name, this is definitely a site you need to look into.

Brand-Yourself.com

Site Description

I wasted a lot of time in college. In fact, I probably wasted the equivalent of a full-time job just hanging out. That’s 40 plus hours of watching TV and playing drinking games every week. Not something I’m proud of. But definitely something that happens to many students. Thankfully, there’s a site out there that aims to help you become more productive in your down time.

College-Startup.com is a blog about how anyone can run a successful business from their dorm room. Regular posts discuss topics that are motivational, helpful, and original. The site is laid out like a typical blog, with content along the left side and a navigational sidebar along the right. There is very little flash, which highlights the content. This is good, since the content is usually very, very good.

College-Startup is not your typical entrepreneurial blog. Instead much of the information is directed at how a college student can or should handle situations that come up when starting and running a business. For many reasons this is different than someone running their business full-time. Availability of resources, time management, start-up capital and more is extremely different under the circumstances faced by someone in college. This blog stays focused to that niche, while also addressing situations all entrepreneurs are familiar with.

About College-Startup.com

College-Startup was started by a student from Ohio State named Ben Bleikamp. It doesn’t say what year he began the site, but the archives go all the way back to November 2005, so we’ll go with that. Originally Ben began College-Startup as a way to help and encourage college students to confidently start businesses while still in school. That goal has been more than met. In fact, the reigns have since been handed over to a couple individuals who’ve made it their goal to continue reaching college students and also to help all who would like to be entrepreneurs but need a small nudge to get started.

What I Liked

Over the past couple years I’ve been stopping in periodically to read College-Startup.com and have always left more knowledgeable than when I arrived. If you’ve never visited this site before you’ll find hours worth of archived content, most of which is still very relevant.

If you come back to the site after lengthy absences like I do, you’ll quickly realize how reader-friendly their diverse categories are. You can find the topics that interest you quickly and easily. Most blogs are like this by design, but College-Startup has drilled down the categories into very specific niches.

From a design standpoint, the color scheme is easy on the eyes, making the articles easy to read. There is a distinct separation between the content section and the sidebars, which have red backgrounds and white font.

I really like that College-Startup doesn’t try to be anything that it’s not. It’s a blog that puts out excellent content related to entrepreneurial ventures and that’s where 100% of the focus goes.

What I Didn’t Like

I’ve praised College-Startup for its simplicity and my thoughts on that haven’t changed. Accessibility to archived content is good, but I’d like to see a page that lists post titles for each month. Currently, the archives list about five posts per page, with an excerpt from each.

This isn’t bad, only a bit clunky. If there was a month with 30 posts you’d have to click through five or six pages to see them all. Again, not the most devastating issue, but a site that has such solid archived content should make it as easy as possible for readers to wade through it.

The Final Word

I rarely leave College-Startup.com without some sort of inspiration. If you’re an entrepreneur of any age or a college student looking for some flexible ways to earn some cash, this site is an awesome reference point. The advice extends to both online and offline business and is generic enough to fit into any industry, making College-Startup.com a priceless resource for budding business people.

www.College-Startup.com

Site Description

There will always be those moments when you realize something and can’t help but think “I wish I knew that years ago”. For me HackCollege.com is the perfect example. On this website you’ll learn tricks and shortcuts for making everything about college life easier. There is no topic overlooked and nothing is off limits.

Topics range from help planning and executing the perfect party to how to construct a loft bed to maximize space. Content is presented in traditional blog form (i.e. the written word) as well as through entertaining videos.

The site layout is very basic with content on the left and the navigation in the right sidebar. Nothing more is really necessary for the site to get its information across so the contributors wisely keep things simple. Because of this, it’s rather easy to find your way through all the archived content allowing the reader to read more and search less.

About HackCollege.com

HackCollege.com was founded in 2006 by Loyola Marymount University student Kelly Sutton. The about page describes his reason for doing so as an “unprecedented curmudgeonliness” (It’s OK, I had to look it up, too.)

Gradually, over the last few years, HackCollege has grown by adding new contributors and content. Most recently, the addition of HackCollege.co.uk has brought helpful college tips across the pond to our friends in England. Plenty of the content on both sites is useful interchangeably, so really the .uk version is just some more bonus HackCollege goodies.

What I Liked

The thing I like the most about HackCollege.com is the content never really extends into the “need to know” phase of college life. In fact, you’ll get along just fine if you never read a single thing the site puts out there. It didn’t quite exist when I was in school, so I’m the perfect example. I made it through OK. However, the great part is the things you’ll learn on the site just makes college better.

For instance, it’s not essential that you know how to build the perfect $100 bar, but man, life is so much better when you do. It’s the simple things in life that matter.

Another part of what they’re doing over at HackCollege that I really enjoy is providing a little variety while still sticking closely to their niche. An example is a recent post about how to handle a ticket. Now that information can pretty much apply to anyone, but when they put the old college spin on it, it suddenly applies to their blog and others find it useful as well.

I think the most important thing about HackCollege, that really helps with their success is the likeability of their contributors. Through the ‘About’ page you can find information and links to social networking profiles for each of them. After some quick browsing there and the reading through the blog, I’ve really come to appreciate their style and outlook. They’re serious (about their business) without taking themselves too seriously (they goof off quite a bit).

I don’t know about you, but I like learning through entertainment. If I can be entertained, and still be smarter when it’s over, then I’m happy. The guys and gals over at HackCollege have that formula perfected.

What I Didn’t Like

I’m being picky here, because in my opinion there really isn’t much wrong with this site. There are a couple of things I’d do to improve it, though. For starters, from a design standpoint, I’d like to see some sort of color contrast or another form of separation between the content and the sidebar. It’s not mandatory, but I think it would make things look a little cleaner.

Also, with site navigation in mind, I would prefer to have easier access to the different HackCollege pages. They are currently listed about halfway down the sidebar. There’s a lot of good stuff on them and I think they’d get more attention if they were available in the header or higher up the sidebar. Again, not really the worst thing in the world, but I needed to pick something, that’s what I’d change.

The Final Word

It’s not often when a website is so good at being entertaining and useful. I try it here, and realize it’s not always easy. The crew at HackCollege is very, very good at it. Every college student should have its resources as part of their college survival arsenal. I wish I did.

www.HackCollege.com

Site Description

For kids and parents alike, leaving home for college is an adjustment. There is plenty of growing up and maturing to do on the child’s part and some letting go has to happen on the parents’ end. It can be difficult. But thanks to DormMom.com parents can rest easy knowing that the essentials are taken care of for their child.

Dorm Mom is a website that provides services like grocery delivery, laundry, apartment cleaning and shipping and storage to busy college students. With a professional design and clear, concise copy, it’s simple to obtain all the information you need to decide which services you’re interested in. And just in case you still have questions a thorough FAQ is available.

Users can purchase services by registering an account on the site and picking the appropriate package. If you happen to have an issue a customer service phone number is available.

About Dorm Mom

Dorm Mom was founded in June 2006 in Buffalo, NY by a former Resident Assistant (RA) who had first-hand experience with some of the obstacles busy college students are face with. It has since grown into a business that services over 1,800 colleges nationwide.

What I Liked

I think the concept of offering such services to college students is brilliant for a couple reasons. First, many kids would rather not do these things and their parents know this. They also understand they need to be done and rather than be hundreds of miles away and worry, they’re willing to hire someone. Second, with the cost of college on the rise, the prices Dorm Mom charges is really a drop in the hat.

Which brings me to my next point. Weekly laundry costs around $300 per semester at the time of this writing, depending on which plan you’re on. What’s an extra couple grand tacked on to your already overwhelming student loans anyway? I look at it this way: Use the time you save to study, get better grades, land a high paying job, and pay the service off in no time.

The prices are easy to find on Dorm Mom, which you might think is no big deal. But for anyone that’s ever tried to budget for something like web design or another similar service, you know that not having a cost in front of you can be pretty frustrating. Having them right there saves you time looking around and helps you quickly get past the decision of whether something they offer is at a price you can afford.

As I mentioned above, things are very easy to find on this site, and each service has its own description and FAQ, so it’s unlikely you’ll have any questions after reading through the content.

Some other cool aspects that may go unnoticed are the little things like free shipping on grocery orders over $25 (if they qualify for Amazon Super Saver), and the ability to select your preferred detergent for the laundry services. Also, the “cancel anytime” feature is huge for those that buy the semester-long plan and have a change of heart midway through. The remaining portion of the fee is even refunded in the event of a cancellation. How’s that for customer service?

What I Didn’t Like

Despite the ease of site navigation and the excellent availability of key information, Dorm Mom still kind of leaves something to be desired from a design standpoint. For instance, the logo is a bit cheesy, like some kind of cleaning product on an infomercial. I’d also like to see them clean up the links on the ‘About Us’ page. Many of them are broken or don’t have existing pages with that information. Either way it’s confusing and frustrating when they don’t work.

From a moral standpoint, I have some reservations about the nature of the business. I think it’s an excellent concept and I’m not surprised people are willing to pay for the services. But as someone hoping that humans continue to evolve and grow, I have a certain reservation about the idea of letting college students off the hook. This is the time in their life when they are supposed to learn responsibility and hiring Dorm Mom is the exact opposite. Rather than figuring out real-life things like time management and taking care of themselves, Dorm Mom’s services bail them out.

With that said, I still think Dorm Mom is an excellent service, with a brilliant concept, which in simple terms is to take advantage of the desire parents have to forever take care of their babies. Even if the baby is twenty years old.

The Final Word

I really like the idea of filling a need like helping college students. I think it’s easy for a person to get overwhelmed when so much of their life changes at once, so I’m not opposed to Dorm Mom. If you can enjoy Dorm Mom in moderation, without taking it for granted, then by all means, sign up today. However, I think that you haven’t really experienced college until you’ve studied in a laundry mat until 3:30 in the morning for a test the next day. That’s where the true learning and growing comes from, not physics lab.

www.DormMom.com

There will (hopefully) be some other posts of interest to non-college students mixed in next week as well, so check in even if you’re not going back to college, because you never know when I might bring you that life-changing website. Or at least a good Timekiller. Even if I can’t find the time to do anything more than the college series, give some of the sites a chance because the great thing about most of them is they can be helpful to non-students also.

Now that I’ve whetted your appetite, try to control your excitement until tomorrow when I’ll bring you Part I.

Update: The links to the posts for the ‘Going Back to College Series’ can be found below.

DoMyStuff is very similar to ads you’ll find on other web services, but it does tend to focus more on odd-jobs and services instead of computer-based projects. Things like laundry, cleaning, and lawn care are examples. Whenever I think of this sort of business model I immediately think the worst of people and wonder how payment is policed. In this case, the site has a secure escrow system that will make sure payments are made in full but only after the work has been completed and approved.

For a while, PDF creation was controlled pretty exclusively by Adobe. Somewhat recently other programs have come about that will convert an existing file into a PDF. If you don’t need any of the bells and whistles that Adobe Acrobat offers and just want to convert a file, Neevia Technology has the answer.

The Document Converter eXPress is easy to use and requires nothing more than an internet connection and a file to be converted. You simply choose from a few settings options, browse for your file and upload it, and decide if you want the converted file to be sent to you via email or open up in a new browser window where you can read or save it. The image below shows the online converter interface.

As you can see converting to PDF has never been simpler. Not only that, but the converter will turn files into various other formats as well, so you’re not limited only to PDF’s. There’s a number of times when something like this can come in handy, even if you have Acrobat or another software program, so it might be a good idea to keep this site in mind.

You’ve probably heard of the website PostSecret. It’s been around for a while now and has developed almost a cult-like following which has spawned books, events and media attention. A regular little business empire.

What’s not always immediately noticed is the business model it follows, which is right in line with social giants Facebook and Myspace. Basically it follows a simple principle that lets it grow exponentially:

Let the users create the content.

Think about this simple math for a minute. Let’s say the average person can create one page of content per day. Theoretically, working every single day one person can create 365 pages in a year. Now, using that same estimate of one page per day think about how many pages can be created if 10 people are generating content. How about 1,000? One million?

You get the point. Even though there are other contributing factors, this one principle is what’s allowed Facebook and Myspace to blow up. Facillitate more, create less. It’s brilliant, really. So brilliant, in fact, that many others are starting to follow the model. Some on the scale of the social networking kings and others narrowing their niche a la PostSecret. Those are the sites I’m focusing on today.

*Today’s collection of links are sites that have found focused niches on the humor surrounding the English language. There are loads of them, in fact (which is surprising and not at the same time), but this edition of Friday Fun Links is only going to list a few of my favorites. I encourage you to comment on some of your favorites I may have missed.

The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks

If you appreciate tongue-in-cheek type humor, you’ll love this site. The Blog of Unnecessary Quotation Marks is a collection of reader submitted photos and images where quotes were completely misused and/or unnecessary.

The commentary by Brittany, the webmaster, is terrific and the submissions seem to be neverending, which is great news for Brittany and not-so-great news for the future of mankind. There’s something about misguided attempts at intelligence that is both funny and extremely sad at the same time. I can talk about it all day, but until you actually see for your self the site can not be done justice.

On the sidebar you’ll see a list of links to other similar sites, some of which made my list, and others that are really good too, but didn’t fit my theme. They’re all worth a look.

Engrish.com

The next site is Engrish.com. This blog has “politically incorrect” written all over it, especially in its title. And even though part of me does think it’s racially insensitive, it’s so humorous it’s hard not to laugh. I don’t get the impression that it’s intended to be mean spirited, so I gave myself the okay to enjoy it.

The concept is simple: take a sign or package that is written in an Asian language and then translated to English and laugh about how the intended message gets twisted. Going a step further (and this is where it toes the PC line) a moderate amount of fun is poked at the way those with an Asian accent speak English. There are a variety of puns and wisecracks that present themselves during this process and the site does an excellent job of delivering the content.

Passive Aggressive Notes

PassiveAggressiveNotes.com showcases notes from people who have perfected the ability to yell at you without you even realizing you’re being yelled at. If you don’t think that’s a talent, you’re wrong. Covering things from moms leaving letters in their child’s apartment “nicely” telling them they live in filth and to clean it up to calling out the Hot Pocket thief, this site is absolutely hilarious…and scary.

Literally, A Web Log

I’ve subconsciously been terribly annoyed with the rising use and subsequent misuse of the word “literally” (quotes OK there Brittany?). It’s like, um, like totally the new Valley girl term and now that I’ve found this site I’m completely aware of how much I hate it. The site I’m talking about is called Literally, A Web Log.

I included it on my list even though I can’t decide whether I like it or love to punish myself. Either way, I get lost reading through some of the ridiculousness and before I know it an hour has passed…literally. I’ve got more important things that I should be doing like organizing my desktop recycling bin into folders before I empty it and other fun stuff, so I shouldn’t spend so much time agonizing over how other people’s attempts at smart end up making them look stupid, but I just can’t help myself sometimes.

That’s Punny!

I’m a sucker for puns. I appreciate the wit involved in coming up with them and think it’s proof that humans have evolved, despite some of the content on Literally, A Web Log. It gives me hope, I think. Over at That’s Punny! you’ll find a great collection of puns found on signs, storefronts and products. The titles are equally punny and enjoyable as well.

One of the most refreshing parts of this blog, and many others of this sort do the same thing, is the blogroll on the right sidebar that lists “Other Geeky Blogs We Love”. Links to a couple other pun blogs can be found in that list, too. A nice gesture by the site owners to share some link love.

Acronyms Sometimes Suck

The sister site of That’s Punny, Acronyms Sometimes Suck is a collection of unfortunate marketing situations faced by a number of non-profits and specialty organizations. The common scenario, I’m assuming, is the association comes up with a name that sounds really good and covers their main objectives, has the legal paperwork filed making them official, and brings the concept to a marketing firm for logo design. Probably sometime around then they realize that the four letter acronym formed by their official name would make Andrew Dice Clay blush.

Oops.

Rather than spend the money and effort to rebrand their club they decide to tough it out, hoping it won’t be made into a huge issue. Sometimes they may even fly under the radar of most people, but not A.S.S. (that’s an acronym, too!). They find it, and post it on their site for the enjoyment of everyone but the poor company and a bunch of old people. Good stuff.

lowercase L

One of the world’s great mysteries, yet it happens all the time. People love to capitalize all the letters in a word or sentence, but for some bizarre reason, the ‘L’ stays small. Of course the lowercase ‘L’ can easily be confused with an uppercase ‘I’, especially when all the other letters are capitalized. Despite the confusion this causes, people still continue to do it. I’m not sure why, but it fascinates me. And apparently others are intrigued as well because there is a steady flow of content to the lowercase l blog.

That’s all I have for today, but those should keep you pretty busy. There are plenty of laughs in the archives of those sites, too, so be sure to dig around a bit. Oh yeah, don’t forget to add some of your favorite links in the comments below. I know there are other great ones I missed.

Anyway, every so often I get an email that is truly amazing, one that’s worthy of passing on and sometimes even discussing with another person. In person. Without waiting for a commercial. The sidewalk chalk guy email is one of those situations. I’m not sure if I still have the original email in my inbox, but I was able to find some of his drawings online and they are definitely worth looking at.

The artist draws in 3D, which is unbelievable but true. He basically employs similar stretch techniques on sidewalks that Michelangelo used on the Sistine Chapel. I think. I really have no idea how this guy is able to do what he does. But I do know that it’s pretty remarkable, and fun to look at. His creativity is really amazing.

So without further ado, head on over to “Sidewalk Chalk Guy’s” website and have a look at some of his work. I think you’ll be amazed. And if you like what you see, don’t forget to pass this post on to your friends. If you send it to six or more friends tomorrow will be a great day.

What I noticed first was the simplicity of the site. When you log in you’re presented with posters from two different movies. You choose the one you like better and your given two new choices. Choose again and continue on in the same way. Sounds pretty easy, right?

The part we don’t see, and where the true magic of Flickchart happens, is behind the selections. When you choose which movie you like better, the site applies a ranking to it based on your previous selections for that movie and those it’s been compared to. What you get in return is a complete list of your favorite movies. From there you can drill them down by year, genre or decade.

I can talk all about this site, but it is really something that needs to be experienced for yourself. Even as I write this post, I’m going back and forth and making a quick selection. As I said, it’s in Beta stage so you’ll need to apply for a membership. If you’re interested in receiving a referral from me, leave a comment below and fill out the SiteRoast contact form.

Anyways, the reason I’m writing this post is to mention a website our travel agent gave us when we picked up our trip paperwork. (By the way, AAA is the way to go when booking Disney vacations.) The site can be found at www.wdwinfo.com. It calls itself ‘DIS’, and the only reason I can think of for that name is it’s short for Disney. I couldn’t track down an explanation, so we’ll go with that.

What you’ll find there is a complete guide to all the parks, hotels and attractions Walt Disney World has to offer. And when I say complete, I mean complete. Every single ride has its own page with a description of what to expect and an explanation of how the ride came to be.

Now this is the unofficial guide, which means it’s not sponsored by Disney, but in my opinion it’s a better resource than their site. The content on wdwinfo.com is very conversational, which makes it more entertaining to read. The official Walt Disney World site is much to corporate for me. You will get a nice little intro courtesy of Tinkerbell, but otherwise the site is more focused on getting you to book your trip than anything else.

I’ve already mentioned how thorough DIS is (that rhymed), and that’s not only for the attractions at Walt Disney World. There is also complete guides to Disney Land, the Disney Cruise Line, Disney Timeshares, and even a little nod to Universal Orlando – evil neighbor to the happiest place on earth. Like I said, it’s a COMPLETE guide to Disney World and then some.

One thing I will say, in an effort to look out for my readers, it’s probably not a good idea to check out any Disney World related websites unless you intend to take a vacation. Otherwise you just may find yourself answering to a nostalgic call from the big-eared mouse against your better judgement. You’ve been warned.

The reason I bring it up is I site I found recently reminded me of how the newspaper boys were on the verge of being run out of business and how they led a revolution to keep their jobs. In the movie they were successful and were able to continue delivering papers. Thanks to OnlineNewspapers.com the real life Newsies might not be so lucky.

This website is impressive to say the least. It’s got links to thousands of online newspapers from around the world. To be honest, unless you know exactly which papers you’re looking for or would like to read the site can be a bit overwhelming at first. The navigation is excellent, but there’s just so many papers to choose from. Thankfully, they’re listed by geographic region, name, state, etc.

One more hidden bonus that OnlineNewspapers has to offer is a link to the similarly styled Online Magazines. This page has links to hundreds of categorized magazines from around the world. I found a few broken links, but for the most part this is a solid reference.

Oh yeah, one last thing. This week when you go to tip your paperboy make sure you give him (or her) back this week’s job ads, because slowly but surely sites like OnlineNewspapers.com are putting our modern-day Newsies out of business.

I’m proud to say today’s post is the latter. Sports Blog Nation is a collection of the best tongue-in-cheek sports blogs in the world. And the best part is they’re all run by fans. Covering nearly all teams in nearly all professional leagues and the NCAA, this blog network is impressive. They boast approximately 200 blogs (and growing) and they’ve done an excellent job of scouting the best blogs out there. In fact, there’s a good chance that one of your team’s more popular blogs is part of SB Nation.

The best part of the SB Nation is the across the board attitude of all the blogs to not take sports or themselves too seriously. There is an abundance of wit and sarcasm that is rarely accepted in mainstream sports. It’s a great thing, really, because that style is exactly what’s missing in sports today. It’s a breath of fresh air to read the two cents of a no-name blogger who doesn’t need to worry about making anyone happy. Give them a blog and let them stir the sh*t. Then tune in to watch what happens. Who said there wasn’t such a thing as free entertainment.

Don’t take my word for it, though. Check out SB Nation.

Some of the best websites are the ones that make things simple. With all the crazy amounts of information available through the internet, sometimes we just want it given to us straight.

Enter www.DoINeedaJacket.com. This interesting weather website takes all the detail you get from most weather reports and delivers a short answer to the simple question: Do I need a jacket?

Go to the homepage, enter your city name or zip code and you’ll get either a yes or no answer. Sometimes you’ll get a reason such as “It’s a little windy” or “It’s misty”. There’s really not much more to it.

For those that like the complete weather report and want to know the temperature and other weather details you can find them in the fine print as well. So you can get a complete weather report if you’d like, but if not you’ll notice the answer to your question in big, bold type.

Powered by Twitter Tools.

With the release of my first Tutorial Series product taking up much of my time last week, and the day job bearing down a bit this week, putting together a collection of quality (quality is key) links hasn’t been easy. In fact, I missed the Links post last week; which doesn’t do well for my attempts to start a tradition my readers can count on.

Which leads me to my revised plan for Friday Fun Links. I will continue to make Fun Links posts and they will be on Fridays, but not necessarily every one. At this point, I just don’t have enough time to make any guarantees. I’m still shooting for every week, but I know distractions will come and until this site pays the bills (not there yet!) I can’t overlook responsibilities. I’m sure you understand.

Anyway, this week’s Friday Fun Links Post is centered around Twitter in the news. I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of Twitter articles lately, and there’s many more I’m sure that you haven’t seen before. I gathered some of my recent favorites and you can read about them below. Then be sure to follow SiteRoast on Twitter.

Twittering Cat Boasts 500k Followers – Sockington is becoming a very famous cat now that he’s got a Twitter account. His antics are chronicled in a first-person tone and are so entertaining he’s being billed as the Garfield of the 21st century!

6 Steps to Alienating Everyone on Twitter – A tongue in cheek look at the wrong way to use Twitter. It’s funny because I see some I follow doing these exact steps and it bothers me a bit. Maybe this article is on to something.

Twitter, Working to Make Money, Won’t Use Ads – Everybody knows it. Twitter founders are sitting on a gold-mine. However, they have yet to capitalize on it. This article explains their thought process and how they eventually intend to cash in on the microblogging site’s extreme popularity.

Can Twitter Save ‘My Name is Earl’? – Probably not. But the response from the Twitter community regarding the cancellation of this (apparently) popular show is pretty impressive. Read the article to find out how you can join the campaign.

Twitter Dating? – This way you only have to listen to 140 characters worth of your dates boring interests. Now that I think about it, they might be on to something here!

Chick Flicks Summarized on Twitter – Genius! Save hours of your life! Instead of spending two hours watching that boring romantic comedy, read the Twitter version and move on with your life.

I Found My Job on Twitter – Further proof that Twitter is useful for so many things beyond the typical ‘What are you doing’ commentary.

Twitter Causes Brain Damage? – This is just what I’ve been waiting for – a little Twitter controversy. You know you’re relevant when people argue about you.

Twitter has definitely taken the world by storm. It’ll be interesting to see how long it lasts. I don’t see it ending anytime soon, though.

However, in case you haven’t heard, the U.S. economy is in a bad way right now. Recession is a common term thrown around these days, and where there’s talk of a recession there’s concern of the D-word. Of course, in a recession things usually fix themselves over time (knock on wood), and eventually go back to normal.

While I have complete faith that this will be the case, I still think it’s best to at least be prepared.

In my quest to understand the difference between Macro and Micro, I found Recession.org. What I like about this site is it’s very up-to-date. It discusses the current economic outlook of the United States, the impact on the global economy, and what’s in store in the coming months.

Recession.org is obviously run by a person (or people) who have a great deal of interest in economics (How else do you explain a 600 word definition for ‘Recession’?). There is an abundance of recession related information, more than most people need, but during times of instability it’s good to know what to expect.

The U.S. economic news section makes sure you know exactly what’s going on lately. The best part? The layout allows you to skim article headings and quickly read a short summary without leaving the main news page. I got a complete briefing of what’s new without clicking a single link. Of course, if I wanted more detail the complete article was available with enough numbers and terms to make my head explode, but who needs that trouble?

Similarly, the library page has a collection of more timeless articles that can be scanned or read in detail depending on your needs. My needs are to absorb as much information as I can as quickly as possible without hurting myself. Mission accomplished with Recession.org.

You’re cleaning out an old relative’s basement and come across a strange object, one that words can’t describe. It’s some sort of decoration, and it’s old…very old. You want to know what it is, both to satisfy your own curiosity and to be sure you don’t get rid of something that might be worth a fortune. What do you do?

There’s only one thing to do in this situation. Take a picture of it and upload it on PicAnswers. There your questionable object can be observed by a community of users who will either know what it is, or give you their most entertaining guess.

I’m not sure how long this site’s been around because I couldn’t find an ‘About’ page, but the furthest back any photo that I saw went was about 1 year. In that time there’s been hundreds of interesting pictures posted. Many have been answered (correctly? I’m not sure) but some are still unsolved.

Even if you don’t have any inexplicable objects you can get lost looking through other peoples old, but cool stuff. It’s kind of like a virtual garage sale. You get to check out the junk, but there’s no concern of “accidentally” buying it.

Take a look for yourself – www.PicAnswers.com

Now, 20 some-odd years later, he’s still continuing to impress but instead of resisting becoming a werewolf, he’s resisting giving in to the horribly debilitating disease known as Parkinson’s. Ever the optimist, Michael is holding out hope that they will find a cure for his illness in time to help him as well as the many thousands who are also affected.

In doing his part to help find a cure, he started The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research in 2000. His foundation takes a very aggressive approach to raising money for research and has already funded more than 142 million dollars.

The foundation website – www.michaeljfox.org – has an extensive amount of information including facts about Parkinson’s Disease, what living with the disease is like, and how you can help find a cure.

In case you missed it, there’s also a link to the very inspiring story ABC did on Michael, “Michael J. Fox: Adventures of an Incurable Optimist”. I watched it when it aired a couple weeks ago and found it to be very inspiring.

When so many celebrities are using their public appeal to spew venom and promote themselves shamelessly for a few extra bucks, it’s nice to see someone like Michael J. Fox putting himself out there. He’s on a mission to find a cure for the disease and he’s willing to do whatever he can to help – even if that means letting all of America see him candidly living with Parkinson’s.

If you’re interested in finding out what you can do to help, visit www.MichaelJFox.org.