Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with recommendations and websites

First Pandora, now what?

NotMyselfRightNow — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 10:21:16 -0800

What technology (websites, webservices, or handheld devices) would you recommend to a non-techy person? My boss asked me this the other day and I totally drew a blank. He's a mid-30s guy, married with three young kids. Very demanding day job, and a fairly senior position as a military reservist. He's great with technology, but he's not a gadget guy and isn't typically on the cutting edge of new technology. Not a television watcher. Carries a BlackBerry for work, and won't be getting an iPhone. Was recently turned on to Pandora and Jott and loves both of them (which is how this conversation started).

Recommendations that he would probably look into would be either passive (like Pandora, running in the background) or active but would improve performance or productivity or something like that. I think he's more likely to engage with online services or sites than with a handheld device, but that's just my guess.

What would you suggest someone in that position look at?

"Oooh, look, an exotic native woman!" "Buzz off."

divabat — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 10:55:09 -0800

What are some good travel guide websites that aren't so Western-centric and don't treat other countries like exotic sights to gawk at? I just rediscovered Matador after randomly signing up for it years ago, and while it looks really promising, it does have a really strong colonial "we are American tourists off to see the exotic isles and be really awesome Americans saving the world" vibe around it. It's something I've noticed with travel companies in Australia too - I was at STA Travel's promo for gap years and to me it felt like the rest of the world was there for their entertainment, or that they were humble foreigners trying to civilize the savages with their volunteer jobs, or something.

Being Malaysian, and being used to being made exotic, that sort of vibe never really sat right with me. I've been travelling since I was a baby, I _love_ to travel, and I love volunteering wherever I can (I was on a world tour that was part performance part community work - best time ever). But I don't click with the party-hard, white-kid-saving-the-world-by-teaching-English, befriend-other-backpackers type lifestyle that groups like Matador and STA Travel tend to espouse.

Are there any other good websites and resources for travel that have a different view on things? I'm after more how-to sort of stuff, like the best organisations doing X or the most interesting things about Y in Z country, or how to pack for a trip (as opposed to personal stories of travel). I'm 23, so something geared for youth is great, but again I'm not much of a club-hopper type. Anything that can take account of currencies that don't really translate well overseas (Europe for Really Cheap!) would be great.

Thanks!

Looking for a good book recommendation website that isn't amazon.com

Sprout the Vulgarian — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 13:13:25 -0800

Has anyone come across a good website that accurately generates book recommendations, based on what you've read and enjoyed? Amazon.com isn't really working out for me, and nextfavorite.com seems kind of buggy at best, and kind of in cahoots with amazon.
Is there anything a bit more independent and/or user friendly out there? I prefer fiction, if that matters.

Good websites for toddlers

itchy — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 23:49:43 -0800

Hi, does anyone have any good recommendations for great web sites for 2 to 4 year olds? My 2 1/2 year old has started getting interested in playing on the computer. I know a couple of sites for kids his age, but would love recommendations on other good sites for 2 to 4 year olds, particuarly ones that are educational, entertaining and easy for him to navigate (he's only using the mouse, not the keyboard at this stage). Thanks!

Recommend some excellent (book or web) letterpress printing resources

matteo — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 07:31:14 -0800

I'm fascinated by the intricacies of good old letterpress printing. there are lots of online and book resources re typefaces, but not as many regarding the letterpress printing. I'd love to learn more, but google isn't really helping. Any good books or websites? I've already checked out this book, I'm looking for similar resources. thanks.

What MP3 blogs are you reading/listening to?

rocket_skates — Sun, 09 Jan 2005 22:41:34 -0800

What MP3 blogs are you reading/listening to at the moment? boomselection.info, scissorkick.com, aurgasm.blogspot.com, musi.for-robots.com and of course fluxblog are currently some of my favs.

Scholarly-but-accessible reference about Chinese history and culture.

enrevanche — Sat, 08 Jan 2005 20:09:07 -0800

SinoFilter: I'm looking for a scholarly-but-accessible book (or books) about Chinese history and culture. (Web site recommendations also welcome.) I have done some Googling and poking around amazon.com, but frankly my ignorance is so deep that I have no good way of evaluating the quality of what I'm finding.

Suprnova replacement?

Slimemonster — Fri, 24 Dec 2004 16:49:43 -0800

I know Suprnova was the absolute best in bit torrent-ing, but now that it's gone, does anyone know of any other sites that are a) anywhere near as extensive and b) not down all the time? ahem...not that i'd ever...use...something like that...ahem...

Calendar and Classifieds

pzarquon — Fri, 06 Aug 2004 17:38:26 -0800

I build a lot of "community" sites - that is, not web communities, but websites that support specific communities. So I'm hunting around for a good set of decent and free PHP/MySQL scripts to do the sorts of things these communities often demand. Now up? A public events calendar and classified ads. AskMeFi has helped before, so hat in hand, I come back to the well hoping for more. [More Inside] For the calendar, I've used phpCommunityCalendar, which is barebones but functional. For classified ads, after actually paying for another solution that turned out to really suck, I started using zClassifieds (looks like the developer's site is gone). Both haven't been updated in over two years. Right now I'm testing ExtCal, which looks promising but still isn't quite what I'm looking for.

For both, I'm looking for a built-in user login system, good moderation (i.e. ban) capabilities, image support, and, of course, free (or nearly free).

I think the classified ads script space is pretty crowded, so if anyone has any experience with a particular program, I'd love to hear about it. As for a calendar, the setup I like most is the one used by VegasEventsOnline.net... but theirs cost five figures to license!

Seeking reliable websites that sell hard-to-find Japanese, Korean, Hong Kong movies on DVD

matteo — Thu, 13 May 2004 10:46:19 -0800

I'm looking for high quality, reliable (since they'll end up having my credit card number) English-language sites that sell (and ship internationally) hard-to-find Japanese, Korean, Hong Kong movies on DVD. There are so many sites that seem to do that. What do you recommend? Also, tangentially related: is there an all-English-language version of the very interesting Amazon.co.jp? My Japanese is close to non-existent thanks