Older websites still valuable
The Washington Post 04/05/1998

Every week since January 1997, we've profiled a Web site a week, spotlighting the places online that help you with real-world tasks. Here are 10 favorites.

GET DRIVING DIRECTIONS

MapQuest (http://www.mapquest.com) is still the best all-around site for viewing maps of places and for getting directions. But competing sites Maps on Us (http://www.mapsonus.com) and Zip2 (http://www.zip2.com) are worth bookmarks too; Zip2 adds useful business-finding tools and Maps on Us offers more map-detail options.


HOW-TO HELP ON ALMOST ANYTHING

Learn2 (http://www.learn2.com), possibly the most consistently useful site we've come across, is still delivering lesson after lesson in life's chores and has since added ``LearnLets,'' quick, mostly reader-supplied tips on things like cleaning burnt pots and pans.

COMPARE CAR-INSURANCE RATES

Progressive Insurance Corp.'s site (http://www.auto-insurance.com) now offers rate estimate comparisons in most states. But also check out the rate-shopping tools at the InsWeb site (http://www.insweb.com)

CONVERT MEASUREMENTS

The slick converter at http://www.mplik.ru/~sg/transl/ is still around to transform inches into miles, gallons into liters and more; meanwhile, the less-elegant page from Los Angeles software developers Entisofthas moved to http://calc.entisoft.com/scripts/unitscgi.exe.

RESEARCH SONG LYRICS

The International Lyrics Server (http://www.lyrics.ch), a compilation of fan-contributed lyrics that lets you search for songs by entering a phrase or verse, now includes more than 76,000 songs (up from 48,000 when we wrote about it) and features a goofy ``become Miss/Mr. Lyrics'' contest in which visitors are invited to mail in (tasteful) pictures of themselves.


LOOK UP THINGS IN OTHER LANGUAGES

The cross-language dictionary at http://www.logos.it/query/query.html includes more definitions (more than 7.5 million) but has since been joined by many other translation-service sites. For instance, the Alta Vista (http://www.altavista.digital.com) search engine performs erratic real-time translations of Web pages.

USE THOSE MATHEMATICAL FORMULAS YOU CAN NEVER REMEMBER

No need to remember algebraic arcana such as the formula for the area of a circle when you can plug the numbers into the http://gate.cruzio.com/~rhamre/Alchemy/Alchemy_Hand convenient forms at book.htm. Browser beware: We've had more I-can't-reach-this-site e-mail about this page than any other ``www.worth it'' subject.

DO REVERSE PHONE-BOOK SEARCHINGP> Lucent's AnyWho site provides the names and addresses (complete with maps) for listed phone numbers at http://www.anywho.com/telq.html; the site now includes a somewhat-defensive ``Perspective on Privacy'' on its opening page.

COMPARE DIFFERENT COMPUTER VENDORS' PRICES

We looked at PriceWatch(http://www.pricewatch.com) way back in March 1997, but since then we've taken much more of a liking to PriceScan (http://www.pricescan.com); Computer ESP (http://www.computeresp.com) is a decent alternative to PriceScan. (KillerApp (http://www.killerapp.com) is yet another option, but its price lists are sometimes poorly organized.)

FIND A CASH MACHINE

The Visa/Plus ATM finder has since moved to http://www.visa.com/atms; you can get to similar locators for MasterCard/Cirrus cash machines at http://www.mastercard.com/atm/. Both can generate simple maps of nearby cash machines in a few clicks.









Rob Pegoraro