Weekend Roundup for October 23, 2009

Since I've been traveling the last several days and spent little time online, this week I thought I'd offer up a few of my favorite sites. Enjoy.

Newsmap is a colorful interface based on Google's news aggregator. It doesn't move and it isn't just headlines - I find it easy to read. Newsmap has tabs for several countries at the top so you can switch locales easily. If you register (registration is free and easy), your news preferences are stored. If you don't want to see any news category (Sports, for instance) you can uncheck it at the bottom of the page and it will remain that way. You can uncheck any category whether you register or not.

Newsmap

A list of my favorite sites wouldn't be complete without mentioning Vlad Studio. Vladstudio is the project of Russian digital artist Vlad Gerasimov. The main focus is on desktop wallpapers (who could resist a wallpaper called Where Jelly Beans Are Born?), with e-cards, blog themes, and jigsaw puzzles added regularly. Much of the site content is free and available in several languages. Membership offers other benefits. Keep an eye out for the membership specials, the last special was 19.00 USD for a lifetime membership.

Vlad Studio

The Big Picture is a photo blog for the Boston Globe/boston.com. The Big Picture is intended to highlight high-quality, amazing imagery - with a focus on current events, lesser-known stories and, well, just about anything that comes across the wire that looks really interesting. Since The Big Picture covers every type of news, images that may be disturbing to some are included - these images do not show up when the page loads. They have a warning text with a link you have to click on to view the photo.

The Big Picture
 

Signing off for now,
Rhiannon

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