penguin's playground

You know that thing where you start typing an address into your browser's address field? You know, the thing where it auto completes and tries to guess the page you're going to visit. I use it a lot. For example, if I want to look at the Guardian I know that all I have to do is type g into teh address bar and http://www.guardian.co.uk/ will be the first option - so if I want to go to the Guardian I just type g, press the down arrow, and hit enter.

Well, for some reason, I thought it would be interesting to go through an A-Z of what my browser (Firefox) suggests for each letter of the alphabet. And, for some even less explicable reason, I thought I'd tell you what I found.

A is for Aktivix - they do email and email list hosting. Surprised at this one since I like them, but don't use them a lot.

B is for Be the Media - an offshoot of Indymedia, a site that aggregates lots of radival news sources. One of my fav sites.

C is for Charlie Harvey - a good friend of mine who keeps his website interesting and up to date.

D is for The Daily Mash - the best satirical website. Ever.

E is for Ebuyer - a (cheap) computer hardware retailer. I was surprised to see them, but then I looked down and realised I have nine plugs going into one socket - perhaps I do buy a lot of hardware.

F is for Fasthosts - I tend to use them for domain names (I seem to own a lot of these, but use relatively few).

G is for Guardian - the mainstream media outlet I use the most. I even freqently comment. I'm not sure why. Perhaps it's because I can use my level of anger and annoyance at the comments as an indicator of how pissed I am.

H is for HacktionLab - an activist tech collective I love being a part of. Or should that be of which I love being a part?

I is for indy.im - a micro-blogging site run in a non-corporate and secure way.

J is for Jedi Kittens - a great YouTube video. But maybe slightly worrying that this appears - do I really watch Jedi Kittens that much? Probably. Is that a bad thing? The jury's out.

K is for Karl - an online collaborative workspact that's used where I work. I probably should leave work in the office.

L is for Indymedia Mailling Lists - I'm part of the Oxford Indymedia collective, and sometimes try and contribute to global Indymedia discussions.

M is for Merlin - my work webmail account. I should definitely leave work in the office.

N is for News - a Drupal site I created that aggregates news from interesting sites in Oxford.

O is for Oxford Indymedia - the best site for radical news in Oxford. Not that I'm involved in the collective or anything ;-)

P is for The Pirate Bay - who index things like films that can be downloaded as torrents. I only download material that is not under copyright.

Q is for UK Feminista - a national feminist organisation. I look at the news section of their site quite often, but I have no idea what it has to do with the letter Q.

R is for Riseup Mail - the people I use for email. They're great.

S is for OARC Screenings - who show films at the local activist resource centre that I'm involved with.

T is for The Register - tech news site, written with loads in tongue in cheek humour.

U is for UK Uncut - cos cutting's bad.

V is for VisionOn TV - grassroots video reporting.

W is for Crabgrass - an online collaborate workspace I use for various projects (URL is we.riseup.net - hence why it appears under W).

X is for xkcd - the best cartoons on the web.

Y is for Cute Kitten Hugs His Teddy Bear EXTENDED VERSION - OK, we got until Y before something a bit embarrassing. I probably would have been able to look you in the eye for the normal version. But extended! I think I must have been feeling insecure of late.

Z is for OpenStreet Map - Like Google Maps, but not evil.

Reflections & conclusions

1. I don't know how the auto-compete feature works. I have only occasionally been to some of these sites. I wonder if some get high rankings because I've been there recently, even if not often.
2. I was amazed that Google Images wasn't there. I spend a lot of time searching for 'kittens + ...'
3. Other that the news sites, none of my sites are here. i should maintain them a bit more.
4. I have too much time on my hands.