Gems - Useful Websites List

The Internet is a treasure trove for finding content, learning new things, exploring our world and enjoying ways to change our perspective on things we care about.

I intend this to become a list of jewels that I and others have discovered on our huge network of available information, repositories, software and much more. I’m constantly on the lookout for what I would call ‘gems’ that I have discovered over my long career on the Internet hoping this list keeps growing all the time.

This list is for sites and pages you wish you knew existed but you haven’t discovered yet, until now. The list is not in any specific order or a specific topic.

If you have any suggestions for great resources, feel free to send them to gems@cdahmedeh.net

MALWARE Protection

Malicious software has become very sophisticated these days and find there ways onto your computer by surprise. Now they come in all shapes and sizes for all major operating systems.

Now one thing I want to make clear, nothing will beat being careful, catching social engineering tricks, be weary of attachments even from those who you know and so on. Most major operating systems like Windows and macOS already come with some anti-malware protection of some kind and I honestly recommend these the most as they use the least resources and are fully integrated into your system. However, some will swear by a certain program and I won’t be making any judgements here. Do your research.

• uBlock Origin (https://ublockorigin.com)

  Adblockers have become more than tools to hide annoying ads from websites you visit on the Internet. They contain lists that block malware, tracking and other software with malicious features. By default, most malicious areas will be blocked by the default lists. However, if you want more protection, the extension allows you to include additional filters and region specific ones. I see adblocker as a ‘prevention is better than cure’ kind of solution which will keep you away from most malicious places on the Internet before something gets on your computer. This doesn’t mean you should browse carelessly however, use your knowledge and your gut. Finally, this extension is available for almost all major browsers.

Learning

We’ve been conditioned that the only way to learn is to spend a lot of money on schools, colleges and universities. However, the Internet has changed that and now allows us to learn whatever we want at no cost.

• Wikiversity (https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Main_Page)

  A forgotten resources for learning material from different calibres all the way to University level. It’s easy to get lost and proves that you don’t need to spend thousands of dollars on courses to get your learning fix.

• No Excuse List (http://noexcuselist.com)

  A incredible resource linking to a huge swath of free internet courses and programs that allow us to learn things from music theory to computing and even cooking! Some of the services are paid however. Unfortunately, the web page has gone offline but thanks to the Wayback Machine, we can keep this page alive! Here’s the list that was previously on that website.

  • Academics

    1. Coursera

    2. The Khan Academy

    3. edX

    4. MIT Open Courseware

    5. University of Reddit

    6. Berkeley Lectures

    7. Learner's TV

    8. Open Yale Courses

    9. Investopedia

    10. Saylor

    11. Stanford Courses on video

    12. Scitable

    13. Cornell's ArXiv (Research Papers)

    14. University of the People

    15. Academic Earth

    16. Connexions

    17. Free Management Library

    18. OpenCourseWare Consortium

    19. Open Access Journals

    20. FutureLearn

• Art

  • Cambridge in Colour

  • drawspace

  • Smarthistory

  • Google Art Project

  • The Bastards Book of Photography

  • Lynda

  • ArtGraphica

  • Ctrl + Paint

  • Exposure Guide

  • Enliighten

• Computer Programming / WebDev

  • Codecademy

  • Learn to Code the Hard Way

  • Udacity

  • MIT's EE and CS courses

  • Beginner's Guide to HTML & CSS

  • HTML Dog

  • Wibit

  • The Odin Project

  • Free Tech Books

  • Michael Hartl's Ruby on Rails

• Cooking

  • Cooking For Engineers

  • Reluctant Gourmet

  • How2Heroes

  • Cooklet

  • Epicurious

  • Chef2Chef

  • The Culinary Cook

  • Jamie Oliver's YouTube

• eBooks

  • Project Gutenberg

  • Audible

  • Bartleby

  • Google Books

  • MIT Classics Archive

  • UPenn Online Books

  • LibriVox Audio Books

  • Poem Hunter

• How-to and DIY

  • Wiki-How

  • Do It Yourself

  • Instructables

  • Let's Make Robots

  • Wonder How To

  • Adafruit Learning System

  • IKEA Hackers

  • MAKE Projects

• Languages

  • BBC Language

  • DuoLingo

  • Memrise

  • Open Culture Language links

  • Visualizing Japanese Grammar

  • Pitch Perfect Pinyin (Chinese)

  • Busuu

• Music

  • Ricci Adams

  • Justin Guitar

  • Teoria Music Theory

  • lightnote

  • Dave Conservatoire

  • Petrucci Music Library

  • Play Bass Now

• Other

  • TED Talks

  • Chesscademy

  • Microsoft DreamSpark programs

  • The Chess Website

  • How Stuff Works

  • Fora.tv

  • Autodesk Software for students

• Wolfram|Alpha (http://wolframalpha.com)

  The power of the Mathematica engine user-friendly form. Use the examples on the homepage or be creative with your own queries and see what you get, you’ll be surprised how much data can churned out and presented in an interactive and intuitive way. The engine works with both mathematical formulae as well as natural language.

• Free Programming Language Books (https://github.com/EbookFoundation/free-programming-books)

  An amazing list of computing related books to improve your skills as a software developer, dev ops specialist or whatever else or just fill a curiousity hole within you. The collection has grown massively the years and now lists thousands of books.

Software

One of the most powerful tools that computers have brought us is software and web apps which allow up to enjoy, organize and shop with so much convenience.

• AlternativeTo (https://alternativeto.net)

  When you find a piece of software that you like but sometimes contains flaws that you find annoying or simply not compatible with your wallet or operating system. AlternativeTo will help you find an alternative to a piece of software you want to use that accomplishes the same purpose and goal while possibly introducing some extras or a different model that might suit your workflow better. There’s a mix of open-source, freeware, free-to-use, freemium and payware programs.

Media

The Internet is filled with media content with hours of videos uploaded every minute. However, sifting through content is difficult and most of us rely on the recommendation engine to bring us good stuff to watch.

• Explore.org (https://explore.org/livecams)

  Enjoy live streams of all sort of venues and places around the world. Whether you want to watch animals under the sea, the waves on a beach or cats running around in rescues, this is the place to be. While this is not the only thing you’d would be watching (because you’re working or surfing the web). It might on a second screen or running your TV as decorative content to liven up the place.

• Top Documentary Films (https://topdocumentaryfilms.com)

  This is a goldmine for documentary lovers. The swatch of topic coverage is impressive ranging from current affairs to science and even conspiracy theories for those inclined. On top of that, every video has a comment section where you can find insightful (well maybe) conversations about the debated points in the documentaries.

Gaming

The world of gaming has become an international way to escape from reality and enjoy other words that our minds can get sucked into. We are lucky these days with so many ways to enjoy games for free and paid.

• /v/'s Recommended Games Wiki (https://vsrecommendedgames.fandom.com/wiki/V/'s_Recommended_Games_Wiki)

  There’s a huge selection of games these days and while we have review websites and so on to help us determine if a game is playable and fun or not, we’d rather scroll through something more thourough. This website contains recommendations for games that the communities consider to be of high quality and provide a nice playing experience. Games for all sorts of systems from different generations are including even PC!

Piracy

Piracy is a very controversial topic in the land of the interwebs. Some see is an evil necessity while other’s think it’s a crime that it should be punished for. I’m not really trying to condone piracy but I have been guilty myself of exploring and using these kind of websites for a very long time. Although I purchase most software that I use on a regular basis, less important things don’t get that treatment.

• Library Genesis (https://libgen.is/)

  The definite website where you can search for eBooks without paying for them. It includes regular books to comics and scientific articles. The domain name has to change often and servers moved as how often the owners get in trouble. Get started with a Title or ISBN number and you’re good to go. Content is available in the popular ePub format and PDF among many others. The links are ad heavy and sometimes contain link that lead to malware. Make sure your anti-malware is running and install an ad-blocker extension with Russian filters enabled.

• Reddit Addons4Kodi subreddit. (https://www.reddit.com/r/Addons4Kodi/)

  Kodi is officially software for viewing content you own and ripped yourself that you usually store on a NAS. However, what makes Kodi so powerful is the ability to install plugins which extend the functionality of this piece of software. Many of them allow you to transform it into a movie and show machine that come from free sources essentially turning into a Netflix alternative. Not only do you watch the content but can enjoy subtitles in the language of your choice and keep track of your progress through trakt.tv. This section of the Internet shares the most powerful and popular addons on a monthly list.

• Torrent Freak (https://torrentfreak.com/)

  This is where I get most of my piracy news discussing the controversial subjects and interesting stories. However, the goldmine on this website is the monthly rankings of the top torrent sites and VPN services. At least one of the avenues will allow you to get what you want.

• rutracker.org (https://rutracker.org/forum/index.php)

  Although I haven’t listed other torrent sites on this page, this one has a special place in my heart for me. It’s content repository spans so much and you’re likely to find anything you need. There may be a language barrier but a simple translation feature such as the one found in Google Chrome will help you get along. You do need an ad-blocker installed with the Russian filters enabled.

• Mobilism (https://forum.mobilism.me)

  This is a website that I’ve been using since my early PDA days on Windows Mobile devices. However, it has grown to include Android and iOS apps, the modern portable platforms we use today. The format is an easily searchable forum with links to whatever software you want. It mainly includes downloads to paid mobile apps serving your app hunger galore.

• ROM & ISO Sites (https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/ROM_&_ISO_Sites)

  The ultimate list of websites and trackers where you can download ROM and ISO collections for your system either to ripped and played on the console itself or emulate it on your own PC. The emulator of choice has been RetroArch these days because of it’s flexibility, ease of use and accurate emulation cores.

• Weak Streams (http://weakstreams.com)

  A website to watch high-quality steams of sports. The streams are pulled from premium accounts for the pertinent sport. The streams are high quality mostly of them at 60 FPS and 1080p. You can even view the schedule of upcoming games.