After more than 21 years in the computer business, I still find myself amazed by some of the things you can discover on the internet.
Most of us visit the same handful of websites every day. We check the news, look at the weather, read our email and perhaps spend a little too much time on Facebook.
But there are thousands of interesting websites out there that most people have never heard of. Some are genuinely useful, others are educational and a few are just plain fun. I’ve picked 10 that I think are worth exploring, and you don’t have to be a computer expert to enjoy any of them.
Ever wanted to explore Mars, fly past Saturn or follow a NASA spacecraft through our solar system? NASA Eyes (https://eyes.nasa.gov) lets you do exactly that with remarkable interactive 3D views of planets, moons and actual space missions. It’s about as close as most of us will ever get to being astronauts.
If you’d rather stay on Earth, Explore.org (https://explore.org) offers live wildlife cameras from around the world. You can watch bears catching salmon, eagles tending their nests, and countless other animals going about their daily lives. Be warned, though. You might sit down for five minutes and discover an hour has disappeared!
Have you ever struggled to choose attractive lettering for a birthday invitation, family newsletter, or business flyer? Fontjoy (https://fontjoy.com) automatically suggests combinations of fonts that look good together, taking much of the guesswork out of making something attractive.
Something most people never consider is how difficult certain colors can be for others to see. Who Can Use (https://whocanuse.com) demonstrates how different combinations of text and background colors may appear to people with color blindness, cataracts, or other vision problems. It’s particularly useful when creating signs, invitations or websites that everyone should be able to read comfortably.
For the musically inclined, BandLab (https://bandlab.com) is essentially a recording studio inside your computer. You can record your voice or instruments, add music, mix multiple tracks and even collaborate with other musicians without investing in expensive recording equipment. It’s a terrific place to experiment, whether you’re an aspiring songwriter or someone who just enjoys making music.
Here’s an unusual one. NCASE Loopy (https://ncase.me/loopy) lets you draw simple circles and arrows to demonstrate how different things influence one another. For example, you could explore how exercise affects energy, how energy affects activity and how those changes influence each other. It’s a surprisingly entertaining way to understand cause and effect without knowing anything about computer programming.
With all the information and conflicting claims we hear these days, it’s sometimes difficult to know what’s really happening in the world. Our World in Data (https://ourworldindata.org) presents research on everything from life expectancy and population growth to education, health, and the environment through interactive charts. It’s a fascinating place to discover what the numbers actually tell us.
For those who enjoy digging deeper into a subject, Connected Papers (https://connectedpapers.com) helps you discover scientific and academic studies related to a particular research paper. Instead of simply displaying a long list of titles, it creates a visual map showing how different studies are related. It’s particularly useful for students, educators and anyone researching a subject that interests them.
If you’re putting together a presentation, school project, newsletter, or community announcement, Storyset (https://storyset.com) offers attractive illustrations that you can customize with your own colors and backgrounds. You can even turn some of those illustrations into animations, making it easier to produce something that looks professionally designed.
Finally, here’s one I particularly like because it solves a problem I encounter almost every day at The Digital Docs. Gifcap (https://gifcap.dev) records a short sequence of actions on your computer screen and turns it into a small, repeating animation. Instead of spending ten minutes explaining over the telephone where someone should click, you can simply show them.
My advice? Don’t try to explore all 10 websites in one sitting. Pick one or two that sound interesting and spend a little time playing around with them.
Personally, I think NASA Eyes and Explore.org are wonderful places to start, especially if you have grandchildren. And Gifcap is a particularly handy tool for anyone who has ever tried to explain a computer problem to somebody else.
I’ve spent more than two decades helping people get comfortable with their computers, and one thing I’ve learned is that you don’t have to understand everything about technology to enjoy what it can do for you.
Sometimes the best way to learn is simply to start clicking around.
And who knows? You might discover something you never knew you needed.
Happy exploring! And remember: stay safe out there!
Stephen Bach is the owner and chief of surgery at The Digital Docs in Marblehead.
