Inhabitat.com, produced by New York City designer and architecture student Jill Fehrenbacher, is a weblog devoted to the future of design, tracking the innovations in technology, practices and materials that are pushing architecture and home design towards a smarter and more sustainable future.

A new generation of desktop search tools is emerging that allows users to quickly find relevant documents in computers across the enterprise the same way search engines help locate information on the Internet. This April, 2005, benchmark study from the E-Business Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison evaluates 12 popular search tools on the basis of usability, versatility, accuracy, efficiency, security, and enterprise readiness. The winner? Copernic Desktop Search.

Can you resist the urge to click? Explore alternative forms of web navigation at this high-concept and fun site from German designer Alex Frank.

Looking for an image for your blog, website or design project? The images found on the Yotophoto search engine are generally free to use provided some minor conditions are honored.

Bryan Alexander, a professor of English literature at the Center for Educational Technology who specializes in the "transformative impact of digital technologies in the liberal arts world," is serializing Bram Stoker's Dracula as a blog. Individual pieces of the novel appear on the calendar dates indicated in the text, starting with Jonathan Harker's May 3rd Bistriz journal entry, and finishing up with November 6 and the final Note.

This ambitious, database-driven online resource celebrates the power of place through in-depth profiles of 46,000 American communities and thousands of parks, museums, historic sites, colleges, schools and other places.

Yugo Nakamura is a creative director, designer and engineer exploring various forms of interactive systems in digital and networked environments. His very cool personal website presents a range of fascinating interactive works. The site requires Macromedia Flash Player.

This assortment of visual phenomena from Danish vision scientist Michael Bach is offbeat, often interactive and always fun. As Purkinje put it: "Illusions of the senses tell us the truth about perception." (First reported on in the November 30, 1999, issue of The Scout Report.)

The Organic Trade Association has produced this clever take-off on the Star Wars franchise, starring "live-action food puppets" to help consumers Learn the Ways of the Farm. The Macromedia Flash Player browser plug-in is required.

Ready for a glimpse into the fascinating history of garden machinery?

It's a tough call to say which is the funniest part of this parody site from Knoxville graphic designer Mark Longmire. So I suggest you start with his take on Romance Novels and go from there. (The site works best with Internet Explorer.)

The creators of this Web-based, anti-plagiarism tool claim it lets you easily identify sites that have copied your content without permission, as well as those who are quoting your site. Just plug in the URL of your original webpage and see what Copyscape brings back.

This tidy-looking blog bills itself as "A Journey Through Junkland - Flea Markets, Thrift Stores, Antique Shops, Garage & Estate Sales, Collecting, Odd Finds, Swaps." Fine, I'm there.

You don't have to be vegetarian to be impressed by the creativity of this online animated film that opposes industrialized meat production and claims to be the most-watched online advocacy film ever. But it helps.

Of "pen" and "sword," which is mightier on the Web? Match any two search keywords and see which gets more Google hits with this nifty online gadget.

With this cool, free online tool, you can create huge, rasterized versions of any digital image and print and assemble them into posters of up to 10 square feet

It's strictly a matter of taste of course but blogger Kim Mellen's eclectic collection of online artifacts includes many fascinating entries which are organized and presented in a cool, clean design.

This blog invites anyone with a secret to present it anonymously and graphically on a postcard, dozens of which are displayed here for all to consider. The result is an intriguing window into otherwise unknown lives.

The range of materials covered by this category of cultural artifacts is practically unlimited but the taste-meisters at UK-based Zonicweb offer an impressive collection for consideration on your next coffee break.

The imagineers at Google continue to expand the horizons of Web search technology with this nifty gateway to a growing archive of television content. Networks and channels participating in the current beta phase of the project include, in San Francisco, KGO (ABC), KRON, KNTV (NBC), KQED and, nationally, C-SPAN, C-SPAN2, PBS, and Fox News.

Wondering whether your grid rage is a legacy of maturalism or just a matter of purple state resonance? Time to consult Buzzwhack, an online site dedicated to de-mystifying the haze of buzzwords and jargon that too often complicate personal communication today.

This site is a knowing and funny send-up of new economy marketing chic from some cool folks at BuildingOnline, itself a Web ad agency. "Our consulting ideas will entice and excite you. Our professional design solutions will give you the confidence to succeed. And our web site will make you think we know what we're doing."

A U.K. psychologist has developed a complex mathematical formula using seven variables to predict winter's emotional low point. The good news is the worst day of the year was last week.

"Amphicar.net is the place on the Internet where the Amphicar owner finds a friendly harbor offering an absolutely free website hosted together with those of other like-minded web toed motorists..." What more need be said about this portal to the exotic world of amphibious automobiles.

"Help, I am being held prisoner in a Chinese bakery!" On your next coffee break, you can enjoy a collection of notable fortune cookie messages at this website.

Compare rate plans for Internet access, cell phones, credit cards, satellite TV and a host of other consumer services at this nifty one-stop, advertising-free Web resource that customizes pricing information according to end-user ZIP code and enables online purchasing. [CL]

Rome may not have been built in a day but you can put together the Taj Majal in an afternoon with help from this website, a printer, and scissors and glue. Among the other folding paper projects offered for free downloading are Mount Rushmore, a Jack-up Oil Rig and the Brooklyn Bridge. [CL]

If you thought the web browser wars were over, think again. The folks from Mozilla have just released a new version of Firefox, which while lacking a few of the developer-oriented features of its cousin Mozilla more than compensates in terms of speed and user-friendly functionality. Plus Firefox manages to avoid the security issues that make Internet Explorer problematic for all but XP-Service Pack 2 end users.

Demo site for IGS web video encoding process that, its developers say, creates high-quality video streams at low data rates--the best of all streaming media worlds. Site features free samples in .mpg format.

"Poorly-drawn cartoons inspired by actual spam subject lines!" Some pretty amusing stuff here.

"Listen to what's bugging two real-life New York gangsters in these secret FBI wiretaps" brought to you by WMOB, an audio website that bills itself as "the wiretap network" and its premiere series as "Seinfeld meets The Sopranos."

Tired of office meetings that seem to go nowhere? Check out the Conference Bike, a tricycle built for seven that, according to the designer Eric Staller's website, "is not just a bike, it's a party on wheels!" Note that while everyone pedals, only one person steers. Some things never change.

For wordsmiths who may want to broaden their cultural and linguistic horizons, the style guide used by British Broadcasting Corporation writers, producers, reporters and newsreaders (as the British refer to anchorpeople) should prove to be both useful and entertaining. The BBC's Style Guide training and development page at http://www.bbctraining.com/styleguide.asp features several interesting style-related articles, e.g. "Cliches and Journalese."