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By DAVID COLKER, LA Times Staff Writer
The list that follows was excerpted from an L.A.
Times article published on Thursday 12 July 2001 about useful
Internet links. All are free to anyone with Internet access.
Area Codes: Type in a city and state at http://www.555-1212.com/geo.jsp
to get the area code.
Currency Converter: To change dollars into euros, lira,
pounds, yen or any other of more than 180 currencies, go to the
continually updated converter at http://www.xe.com/ucc.
Dictionary: Several are available online. At http://www.dictionary.com
are definitions from the American Heritage Dictionary and
Webster's Revised Unabridged. At http://www.m-w.com
you'll find the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary.
Earthquakes: If a local earthquake hits and you still have
electricity, you can check its intensity at pasadena http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/shake/ca/index.html.
Encyclopedia: The most complete compendium of general
knowledge on the Web is the Encyclopaedia Britannica, at http://www.britannica.com,
and it's all free. Microsoft's Encarta, at http://www.encarta.com, is not
as comprehensive and parts of it are open only to paid MSN
subscribers.
Federal Legislation: The Library of Congress site, at http://thomas.loc.gov , provides
a searchable database of bills for the current congressional
session. Text, sponsors, voting outcomes (if any) and status are
provided.
Game Cheats: Tired of spending hours trying to make your
way through a computer or video game? Make it easy on yourself.
Cheat. Tips and walk-throughs for hundreds of games are available
at http://www.gamefaqs.com.
IRS Forms: Not what you wanted to think about this summer,
but in case you got an extension or need to make mid-year
filings, you'll find forms to print out at http://www.irs.gov/forms_pubs/i
ndex.html.
Literary Classics: Looking for some beach reading you can
take with you a few pages at a time? Or do you need to quickly
look up a Shakespeare passage? Project Gutenberg, begun in 1971,
now contains more than 4,000 downloadable fiction and reference
books, all in the public domain. The site is at http://www .gutenberg.net.
Maps: For driving directions or to pinpoint an address in
the U.S., go to MapQuest, at http://www.mapquest.com,
or Maps on Us, at http://www.mapsonus.com.
At MapQuest, you can get an aerial picture of many locales.
Metric Converter: In this era of globalization, an instant
converter to change, for example, feet into meters or Fahrenheit
to Celsius is one of the handiest of all Web tools. Some of the
easiest online converters to use are at http://www.worldwidemetric.com/metcal.htm
and http://www
.admiralmetals.com/metric_conv.htm.
Movies: Search for information on the Internet Movie
Database, at http://www .imdb.com,
by titles, actors, writers, directors, producers and crew members.
Loads of links make this an invaluable research tool for cinemaholics. For current local show times, enter your ZIP Code
under Find Showtimes at movies.yahoo.com.
Quotations: A 1919 edition of Bartlett's Quotations, the
classic in the field, is available online at http://www.bartleby.com/100.
For more contemporary quotes, Simpson's Contemporary Quotations,
at http://www.bartleby.com/63,
covers 1950-1988.
Restaurants: The popular Zagat guides to 45 locales,
including the Los Angeles area, are now online. You can search by
cuisine, quality, price, neighborhood and other factors at http://www.zagat.com.
Road Conditions: This is rarely a big deal in Southern
California except for wintertime, when some mountain highways can
be closed because of snow or require the use of tire chains. To
check conditions, go to http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/roadinfo
and enter the state highway number.
Smog: To get current readings for areas in Los Angeles,
Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, go to the
clickable map at http://www.aqmd.gov/smog/areamap.html.
Sports Scores: For the latest, go to the ESPN site, at http://www.espn.com, and click on
the sport of your choice in the left-most column. Alternatively,
at cbs.sports line.com, you can find scores by clicking on a
sport at the top.
State Legislature: To identify your state representatives,
enter your address at http://www.assembly.ca.gov/acs/a
csframeset9text.htm for the name of your Assembly member or
at http://www.sen.ca.gov/~newsen
/senators/yoursenator.htp for your senator. For more
information on the Legislature, go to http://www.state.ca.us and
click on Government.
Stock Quotes: At http://www.yahoo.com,
click on Finance/Quotes (under Media) and enter the stock symbol.
If you don't know the symbol for a company, you can get it by
using the Symbol Lookup feature.
Sunrise/Sunset: The U.S. Naval Observatory provides
sunrise and sunset times for any day from the years of 1700 to
2100 at http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs
/RS_OneDay. The listings are for more than 22,000 cities and
towns; if you're in a rural area or foreign country, you can get
the times if you know your longitude and latitude.
Surf: For links to conditions, forecasts and beach Web
cams in Southern California, go to http://www.surfrider.org/Cal5.htm,
sponsored by the nonprofit Surfrider Foundation. A government
site with a less detailed forecast is at http://www.nwsla.noaa.gov/LAXNSHLOX.
Telephone Directory: At http://www.switchboard.com
you can enter whatever information you have about a person's name
and address to look up a telephone number. If that doesn't work,
try the similar service at people.yahoo.com.
Television: As if you didn't waste enough time on the
Internet. You can check out customized TV listings at http://www.tvguide.com. Just
type in your ZIP Code.
Thesaurus: Roget's famed reference book is at http://www.thesaurus.com.
Time: To look up the time in another part of the world, go
to http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock.
The correct time (give or take four-tenths of a second) anywhere
in the U.S. is at http://www.time.gov.
Traffic: You can check out traffic maps of Los Angeles and
Orange counties and the Inland Empire at http://traffic.tann.net/Frame05.html
traffic.tann.net/Frame05.html. The maps show the general traffic
speed on freeways and the location of "incidents" that
are slowing it down. Moving your cursor over an "incident"
gives you a brief explanation of what's going on there.
Transportation: The Los Angeles County Metropolitan
Transportation Authority sponsors a highly useful site at http://www.mta.net with a Trip
Planner for bus trips, subway information and links to community
bus systems throughout Southern California. The downtown L.A.
DASH bus system is explained at http://www.ladottransit.com/dash.
For Metrolink commuter train schedules, go to http://www.metrolinktrains.com.
Finally, Amtrak schedules and reservation service are accessible
at http://www.amtrak.com.
Weather: The home pages sponsored by regional offices of
the National Weather Service are far from elegant, but they
provide localized forecasts. For Los Angeles and Ventura
counties, go to http://www.nwsla.noaa.gov/zones/LAXZFPLOX.
Orange County and Inland Empire forecasts are at http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/afos/LAX/ZFP/
LAXZFPSGX. For national weather, satellite pictures and radar
images, try http://www.accuweather.com
or http://www.intellicast.com.
World Facts: Few have access to CIA files, but everyone on
the Internet can obtain the agency's highly useful basic research
on countries around the world. The latest edition of the CIA
World Factbook is at http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/f
actbook.
ZIP Codes: The Postal Service ZIP Code finder is at http://www.usps.gov/ncsc/lookups.
It's not the most user-friendly tool available on the Web--the
directions are in governmentese--but it does the trick.
* * * L.A. Times staff writer David Colker covers
personal technology.
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