Things to do when you're bored #1 Play with translation pages
One good example of a translation page is This translation page. Enter a common English phrase (or short paragraph) into the translation window, have it translate it into, say, French or German, then copy the resulting text into your clipboard, paste it back into the translation window and then have it translate that back into English. Now compare the retranslated English to the original English. The results can be hillarious!
Some phrases you might try:
"gh" can have an "ef" sound at the end of a word but not at the beginning of a word.
Ride to live and you will live to ride.
The British are coming, run for your lives! #2 Check out current internet searches
This may have uses besides amusement, it can give you some ideas for keywords and even
whole new webpage concepts for your own site! One example of a regularly refreshed page
showing current searches is Metaspy, which shows
searches being executed on MetaCrawler.
This site shows both filtered and unfiltered versions of searches. The unfiltered page features
adult ads as well as searches so beware!
You won't believe what some people are looking for! #3 Do your own searches
Try entering some nonsensical phrase such as "frog juice" into a search engine and see what happens. You'll be surprised at what comes up!
You should be aware, though, that seemingly innocent phrases like "cat pictures" often lead
to adult web sites, so watch where you're going. You can do it by going to YAHOO or GOOGLE or try this link. #4 Look up your own name
Unless you are pretty famous, or have pages of your own, you probably won't find a webpage about you, but you probably will find several about people who have the same name. You might even find that some of them are related to you! For a beter idea of how many people there are with the same name as you, look in a white page directory such as Bigfoot. #5 Play some online games
Think that BBS games are dead? Think again! Far from being replaced by the internet, many BBSs
have installed Telnet ports so they can be accessed over the net. Now it is possible for people from all over the world to play in the same game without paying Long distance charges!
Where can you find such BBSs?
Well, I have a List of telnetable
BBSs.These all have Legend Of the Red Dragon as well as many other online games.
To access these you'll need a
Telnet application. The current version of Netscape has one built in, but it's not very good. I recommend installing a third
party program such as Netterm. #6 View some webcams
The amusement potential depends on what is going on at the moment where the camera is mounted.
Try PD Conner's cams (with audio!) or go to the
Camzone cams, and you've gotta see
The Kitty Cam! Looking for more?
Check out Webcam Central!
It should be noted that unless you are paying for access, don't expect to see young vixens "au naturel", you're much more
likely to see a grown man typing into a laptop while in his underwear! #7 Surf at random
Just open your browser and put a random word or phrase (no spaces!) between "www" and ".com". For example,
"www.tomdoit.com", and then have your browser go there.
You'll be surprised where this leads you! Just be
aware that, as with searches, seemingly innocent domain names often belong to adult websites! For instance,
archie.com, which now reddirects to
archiecomics.com used to go to an adult site, and if you think that facial.com
is about makeup, guess again!
#8 Check out Newsgroups!
This is not part of the World Wide Web, it is another service that is carried over the internet. For those not familiar with newsgroups, it is kind of like email, except that it's public. Messages posted on news groups are intended for public consumption and can be read by anyone who has access to a news server, most ISPs have their own, and news reader software. Although many browsers and email programs have newsgroup (NNTP) support, you may find that specialized newsreaders, such as Free Agent and News Xpress do a better job.
As with email, you can send files as well as messages and there are newsgroups, such as the newsgroup I started, alt.binaries.pictures.stereo which specialize in files. Just about about every kind of file you can imagine is sent over binary groups both legally and otherwise. Just be aware that some groups specialize in material that may be unsuitable for general audiences and even groups that have harmless themes are sometimes spammed with commerical porn. #9 Put up your own webpage!
If you're not satisfied with the typical "cookie cutter" sites that so many other people have put up, and you can't think of
anything important to put make a website about, then try to think of the stupidest topic imaginable and put up a "parody" site
that treats it as if it were serious. If this is done well, the results can be hillarious! Some of the Web's most popular
and celebrated sites, such as bert is evil,
a furby autopsy , stick death, etc., resulted
from just this kind of endeavor.
You probably have webspace already from your ISP, you can also get ad free domain hosting for
less than $10 a month or you can
get free webhosting from places such as Yahoo Geocities.
