There are so many strange things on the Internet one does not know where to start when talking about them. We know from experience there are some truly weird photos being put up and some of them completely defy meaning. How many times have you gone on Facebook and saw a posting with a photo which you could not decipher the meaning of? It’s happened to me quite a bit. Some of the photos are meant to be funny and I get that, but there are some which are meant to be relaying some sort of message, but are so strange the message is completely lost. Let me give you an example of what I am talking about. Unfortunately I can’t post the photo since it is copyrighted, but I can tell you what it looks like. In the photo is an ear of corn with arms. One arm is holding a boys head by the neck and he has no body and there is another hand which is passing it to him. If the picture was meant to be funny it certainly isn’t and if it was meant to convey a message it certainly doesn’t.

Social media has become the favorite place for most people who go on to the Internet. I am on a group on Facebook of friends and former workers and it is a nice place to go because it keeps us in touch with each other. Still there are certainly some problems with it. One thing I find quite annoying is when people post something and say things like if you’re a real American you will share this post. This indicates if you don’t share the post you’re not a real American. These types of posts seem to be appearing more often. Of course they don’t always say you will be a real American, what they do say is things like if you support our troops you will share this post or if you want to help orphans and children you will share this post etc. This type of post seems more like coercion. One on the things which annoy me on Facebook are all the notifications by people to play games, after I had said numerous times I don’t play games on Facebook. Nothing is perfect so I overlook these things as they are just minor annoyances.

One of the truly great things the Internet has enabled us to do is repair just about anything. You can find videos on YouTube on just about every device you want to fix. I know people who have repaired their cars themselves and these people were not mechanics and were learning as they went along. YouTube videos are also great at instructing you on the use of devices. Let me give you an example of this. I recently purchased a watch and couldn’t figure out how to change the time. The watch had analog hands and also digital time along with other features on digital mode. The analog hands were easy to adjust, it was the digital time I couldn’t figure out. I went to YouTube put in the brand or the watch and asked how to adjust the time. Several videos appeared. The first one I went to wasn’t much help to me since I really couldn’t understand what the person was saying since he had a thick foreign accent. The next video clearly showed me what to do. Who would’ve known you had to press one button six times in order to get into the time changing mode on the digital end of the watch?

Sometimes you are thinking about purchasing a piece of software for your computer, but you don’t want to make the investment before trying it out. I think many of us have had experienced this. One place you might want to try is CNET. CNET is a very helpful website. It contains downloadable software, much of which is free and some of which is trial based. This means the company selling the software will give you a certain amount of days to try it out and decide if you want to buy it. You may or may not be able to find the piece of software you’re looking for on a trial basis, but what have you got to lose? CNET also has product reviews and you can see what others think of the software or any other product you are thinking about buying before you buy it. One of the things I like about CNET is in all the years I have been downloading software from them including freeware, I have never found an infection on any of the software.

There are also websites which can be used to test some of your equipment. For example many websites exist which will allow you to test your Internet speed. You will probably be surprised to find you are running slower than you thought. Hewlett-Packard has a service which states you can test your Hewlett-Packard Fax machine. You send a fax to their listed number and then they reply if everything is okay. I have found in my personal experience the faxes didn’t have to be sent by a Hewlett-Packard machine, you would still get the same service with another brand. Many companies have a service which allows you to check your computer for a virus. They scan your computer while you are on line. I would like to say this is no substitute for using good anti-malware software on your computer, but it could be handy for someone who neglected to install this type of software or is using one of the free alternatives.

One of the things I would like to mention is alternate news. There are plenty of alternate news sites on the Internet, along with many of the main media sites. Sometimes we can find out news which the main media sites don’t print, of course we have to be careful and make sure what we are reading is not false news. Many of these alternate news sites have large audiences. One of the most famous would have to be WikiLeaks which claims they have never released anything which wasn’t true. Some of the main media sites are free to those who are using one of their services. An example of this is people who use Optimum TV are given free access to the online news version of the newspaper Newsday. News is a big thing on the Internet and there are plenty of places we can get it from. Some people find the Huffington Post very interesting since it covers so many different topics, while others find the political reporting in the Drudge Report just what they’re looking for.

There are even places to go for those who have particular interests such as UFO reporting. Museums online are very interesting and some even have fully controllable three dimensional rotation so you can move the photo of the museum around anyway you want and even go forward and backward. Whether you are a stamp collector or coin collector there are many places online which would interest you. For those people who like auctions it’s hard to beat EBay. Just about every human endeavor can be found on the Internet and there is certainly something for everyone.