JNet's Picks of the Week - 2005

Here is a random selection of some of the best, most topical or just plain fun sites for journalists.

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Click here for previous years of Picks of the Week, going back to 1997.

• Pick of the week for December 18, 2005: HeadlineSpot This vastly improved site not only gives you a quick glance at the top headlines. You can now also select by countries (or even for US states and cities) and get current news from your location, plus convenient lists of newspapers and broadcast outlets. For similar resources, see JNet's Find News page.

• Pick of the week for December 11, 2005:Yahoo Answers Free answers from other web users to any questions you have. Yahoo's response to Google's pay-for service. Also check out YouAskUS which starts at $5 for simple questions. For more - often free -- resources, check our JNet's Reference page and Librarians Page.
  
  
• Pick of the week for December 4, 2005:Optimal Desktop This free downloadable software makes it easy to bookmark Internet links, RSS feeds, files and folders and access them all from the same window. With RSS feeds you can subscribe to your favorite blogs and news feeds and have information delivered to your desktop as soon as it becomes available. You can easily bookmark your favorite web sites, RSS feeds, files and folders in one place and get anywhere with 3 clicks or less. And put the sotfware on a USB key and take all your favourites and RSS feeds with you.For more tech tools, see JNet's Tools Page

• Pick of the week for November 27, 2005: Google Advanced Scholar Search is the advanced version of Google's little-known scholar search which allows you to hunt through academic journals and publications. The advanced tool lets you search by author, by publication, by date or by subject area. For more Google tools, see JNet's Google Page.

• Pick of the week for November 20, 2005: Kayak Buzz If you're a journalist who travels a lot or just the occasional tourist, this powerful search engine gives you instant comparisions for the best rates around the world. It's not a travel agency -- it just gives you the prices and results from over 100 online travel sites.

• Pick of the week for November 13, 2005: Clusty Blogs Clusty is one of the new generation of search engines that tries to "cluster" or group your results by themes, often making it easier to search or find new leads. This blog search tool applies the same advantages to hunting through blogs. For more Blog Tools, see JNet's Blog Page. For new search tools, see JNet's Search Page.

• Pick of the week for November 7, 2005: Google Print Still controversial because authors and publishers are worried about copyright infringement, this latest assault from the Google behemoth allows you to search the contents of books. You can often get excerpts from pages and links to local libraries or online stores to borrow or buy the book. In advanced search you can search by author and date as well. For more Google tools, see JNet's Google Page.
  
  
• Pick of the week for October 30, 2005: OpenSecrets As political scandal and controversy swirls around the White House this week, it's a good time to consult a web page like Open Secrets, which details the influence of money in Washington. You can type in the name of any member of the Bush administration, the Senate or the Congress and get good background information. The site is run by the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan, non-profit research group that tracks money in politics. For more ways to cover American politics, see JNet's US Politics Page and JNet's Main US Page.
  
  
• Pick of the week for October 23, 2005: TVRadioWorld gives you one-stop shopping if you are looking for radio and TV stations around the world. The results not only give you their web pages, but also contact information, phone numbers and email. The advanced search feature allows you to search by location in North America. For more ways to find broadcast stations, see JNet's Find Radio Page and JNet's Find TV Page.
  
  
• Pick of the week for October 16, 2005: Lexis Nexis News One of the most comprehensive news database services on the web, Lexis Nexis, is often too expensive for many journalists and freelancers. But this free news service offers a wide range of recent headlines, background stories, access to wire services and TV transcripts. For more ways to find news, JNet's News Search Page.
  
  
• Pick of the week for October 9, 2005: Blinkx A bright, fun way to search for TV and video, plus hunt through the exploding number of podcasts. You can also download a desktop version. For similar tools, see JNet's Video Search Page.
  
  
• Pick of the week for October 2, 2005: Google Blog Search The most powerful search engine on the web turns its strength to searching blogs. The basic search page offers Google's usual simple and sleek results. The advanced page allows you to search by a word in the title, by date or by blog author. For similar tools, see JNet's Blog Page.
  
  

• Pick of the week for September 25, 2005: Myriad Search One of many multiple search tools that allow you to hunt through many search engines at once, Myriad offers an interesting twist. You can compare the results of several of the top ones (Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask Jeeves) but also "bias" your search to get more results from your favourite search tool. For similar sites, see JNet's Multiple Search Page.

• Pick of the week for September 18, 2005: WikiWax This excellent search engine allows you to hunt through the million-plus entires in the Wikipedia, one of the web's fastest-growing reference sites. Wikipedia is an open source encyclopedia that has contributions from amateur and not so amateur contributors. The citations may not always be reliable, but they provide great leads and web links for your stories and research. For similar search sites, see JNet's Reference Page

• Pick of the week for September 11, 2005: NewsAggregator Surfwax has improved its news tool, now boasting over 56,000 news topics from 4,200 news sources. It has a wide range of subjects, or you can do a keyword search. And you can track and accumulate news on topics specific to your personal interests by using NewsTracker. A separate news page is created and updated twice daily for each of your personalized NewsTracker topics. For similar search sites, see JNet's Find News Page

• Pick of the week for September 4, 2005: MagPortal This site remains one of the easiest ways to search for magazine articles. While not complete, it has an impressive list of magazines in its database - from mainstream to speciality -- and a good search tool.For more magazine search sites, see JNet's Magazines Page
  
  

• Pick of the week for August 28, 2005: Google's Updated Desktop Google has taken a marvelous tool and made it better. Its free Desktop searches your entire hard drive, including emails you sent and web sites you visited. Now Google has added a sidebar that collects a list of recent headlines from various sources and adapts to your tastes based on the articles you select. For any headline you can right-click and select "Don't show me items like this." Plus weather, Google Talk and numerous other gadgets. For more Google tools, see JNet's Google Page
  
  
• Pick of the week for August 21, 2005: MediaChannel Global NewsIndex Many websites offer listings of the world papers (see JNet's Find Papers Page for a good list). But few give you an analysis of what the political leanings or affiliations are. MediaChannel offers some analysis or details of the newspapers in the Third World or developing countries. For similar tools, see JNet's Find Newspapers Page
  
  
• Pick of the week for August 14, 2005: Librarians' News Archives Newly-improved, this listing was always one of the best web sources for newspaper archives, now with expanded and up-to-date listings for US, Canada, European and Asian archives. It tells you what paper has what and how much it is.. For more archives tools, see JNet's Archives Page
  
  
• Pick of the week for August 7, 2005: Mapmachine This easy-to-use site from National Geographic gives you basic statistics and history about a country, plus it allows you to customize maps for your needs. For the US and Canada, you can also search by state and province. For more ways to get facts on countries, see JNet's Countries Page and also Maps page.
  
  
• Pick of the week for July 31, 2005: How to Choose A Search Engine This librarians' guide lists dozens of search tools by category, helping you decide - whether you want pictures, news, pictures, or specialized search tricks -- which of the many search tools is best. For more librarian assistance, see JNet's Librarians Help Page.
  
  
• Pick of the week for July 24, 2005: Ice Rocket A wonderfully simple search engine, Ice Rocket gives you a thumbnail picture of each result. Plus, click on the "Archive" button and you get several years' worth of previous versiopns of that page, courtesy of archive.org. IceRocket also has a decent news search tool and blog tool. For more competitors to Google, see JNet's Best Search Page.
  
  
• Pick of the week for July 17, 2005: Copernic Copernic was one of the first multiple search engines to get it right: it uses many web-based search engines but allows you to store the results on your hard drive. Now it also offers a desktop dearch so you can search your files and email, plus many new features. For other multiple search tools, see JNet's Multiple Search Page.
  
  
• Pick of the week for July 10, 2005: Google Suggest This new feature by Google finishes the spelling of keywords as you type them. What's neat is that it not only spells out various options which might give you ideas for other variations on your topic or word, it also tells you how many web page results you'll get with each variation of words or spelling. For more Google tools, see JNet's Google page.
  
  
• Pick of the week for July 3, 2005: DocuTicker DocuTicker a daily update of new reports from government agencies, NGOs and think tanks compiled by US librarians. Though mainly American, the resources can be as varied as the effect of globalisation on children’s mental health, road fatalities in the UK and money-laundering worldwide. For more librarian tools, see JNet's Reference Pages and JNet's Librarians Tools.
  
  
• Pick of the week for June 26, 2005: Google Earth Google has added new bells and whistles to its global satellite mapping software formerly known as Keyhole. You point and zoom to anyplace on the planet that you want to explore. Now you can also tap into Google search to show local points of interest and facts. View driving directions and even fly along your route. Additional high-resolution imagery reveals detail for individual buildings in for most of the major cities in the US, Western Europe, Canada, and the UK. Detailed road maps are available for the US, Canada, the UK, and Western Europe. For more mapping tools, see JNet's Map Page.
  
  
• Pick of the week for June 19, 2005: Future Events News Service bills itself as the media's diary, with the world's largest database of forthcoming news events. It offers you a look-ahead at news events on the international, national and local level. There is also an extensive database of contacts with telephone numbers, email addresses and website links. It's not frtee but you can try it out for free for 7 days. For more look-ahead tools, see JNet's Look Ahead Page.
  
  
• Pick of the week for June 12, 2005:  Google and Yahoo News This simple page at Newisness allows you to search the two best news search tools at the same time. A good way to compare what Yahoo and Google return and find news articles you might miss. For more news tools, see JNet's Finds News Page
  
  
• Pick of the week for June 5, 2005: Encyclopedia Britannica The old standard of encyclopedias has done a good job of refashioning itself on the web. Besides the usual keyword search, it offers historical timelines and an atlas. For similar tools, see JNet's Reference Page.
  
  

• Pick of the week for May 29, 2005: Librarians' Index to the Internet This site offers a searchable, browsable collection of over 16,000 high-quality Websites. Their motto is "Information You Can Trust" and they provide a well-organized point of access for reliable, trustworthy, librarian-selected Internet resources. For similar tools, see JNet's Librarian Search Help Page.
  

• Pick of the week for May 22, 2005: Google's My Search History Ever find what you're looking for with Google, then promptly forget what you found? This new service from Google Labs allows you to track all of your recent searches. Even if you forget what exact keywords you used, you can use the calendar feature to check the searches you did on a given day and navigate to any of them with a single click. Next to your search results, you'll see how many times you've visited a certain search result and the last time you viewed it. Better still, you can access this information from any computer you happen to be using. It's free, but you have to sign up for a Google account. For similar tools, see JNet's Google Page.
  
• Pick of the week for May 15, 2005:    Yahoo Full Coverage Yahoo has retooled its news section. Its advantage is not speed and numbers of sources -- Google News still does better -- but in the depth of its features, themes and backgrounds. A great way to get a dossier or background on a story you are working on. For similar tools, see JNet's Find News Page
  
  
• Pick of the week for May 8, 2005:    Furl Save, Search, Share your bookmarks or favourites from any computer. You can also browse the Web and save any page with a single click Retrieve and share your pages easily with anyone -- or with yourself if you're on the road. For similar tools, see JNet's Tools Page
  
  
• Pick of the week for April 31, 2005:    Yahoo News Search Yahoo's new tool for searching news doesn't have as many news sources as Google's 4,500 papers but it offers some special features. Tabs allow you to compare different news sources and you add some of your favourite sources. You can also click the purple icon or dashed line under bolded keywords in the news story to get more related news. For similar tools, see JNet's Search News Page
  
  
• Pick of the week for April 24, 2005:  YahooVideo Search The video search wars heat up as Yahoo tries its hand with a decent tool. The best way to use it for news searches is to search video on a specific site - for example, New York Times or the BBC -- in the advanced form. For similar tools, see JNet's Video Search Tools Page
  
  
• Pick of the week for April 17, 2005:  Yagoohoogle Why settle for one search engine when this page splits your screen and gives you Google and Yahoo together. A great way to compare results. For similar tools, see JNet's Best Search Tools Page
  
  
• Pick of the week for April 10, 2005: WHO Statistics Excellent pick-and-choose menu from the World Health Organization. You can search by area and get detailed information on every country. Then scroll down the results, click on a statistic and see how that country ranks in the world. For similar tools, see JNet's Find Countries Information Page
•  Pick of the week for April 3, 2005: Google News - Personalized Google News, the best news search tool of the web, just got better. Now on the right hand side of the page you can customize it. Choose the sections you want to make prominent from a selected list or choose your own. Add a search term and get regular headlines on your favourite topics. For similar tools, see JNet's Find News Page.
  
  
• Pick of the week for March 27, 2005: Inter Press News Service A refreshing alternative look at world events, with in-depth reporting from around the world. You can search by country, region and language.IPS was set up was set up in 1964 as a non-profit international cooperative of journalists. Be sure to check out their excellent dossiers on everything from corruption to Pope John Paul. For other alternative news services, see JNet's Alternate News Page.
  
  
• Pick of the week for March 20, 2005: Google Local Sometimes the information you're looking for is related to a particular place. Google Local locates web sites, neighborhood stores and services by searching billions of pages across the Web, then cross-checking those results with Yellow Pages data to pinpoint the local resources you want to find. Just include a US zip code or a Canadian postal code or the name of a town or city with your regular search terms. Your local results will appear at the top of the results page.For the moment, available only for the US and Canada. For other Google tools, see JNet's Best Search Page.
  
  
• Pick of the week for March 13, 2005: TV Eyes Want to see what TV shows, newscasts, talk shows and TV magazines are saying about a topic? This free service searches for any words you want in transcripts of US, UK and Canadian television and sends you an email when the words are found. For similar tools, see JNet's TV Page.
  
  
• Pick of the week for March 6, 2005: NationMaster.com A massive central data source and a handy way to graphically compare nations, NationMaster pulls together data from such sources as the CIA World Factbook, United Nations, World Health Organization, World Bank, UNESCO, UNICEF and OECD. You can generate maps and graphs on all kinds of statistics on anything and everything from military strengths to wall plug voltages. Plus a full encyclopedia with over 200,000 articles. For similar tools, see JNet's Countries Page.
  
  
• Pick of the week for February 27, 2005: MuckRaker.Org This home page of the American Centre for Investigative Reporting offers some of their recent work -- for PBS, the New York Times, and other media outlets in three major areas: Social and Criminal Justice, Environment and Science and Technology. Plus a helpful list of reporter tools. For more media organizations and web sites, see JNet's Media page.
  
  
• Pick of the week for February 20, 2005: Cyberjournalist An excellent collection of journalism resources by Jonathan Dube, the main page has combined some of the best search tools in easy-to-use formats - everything from search engines to reference books. Plus plenty of cypertips and resources. For more search tips, see JNet's Search page.
  
  
• Pick of the week for February 13, 2005: Google Scholar Another new tool from the Google behemoth. This search engine enables you to search specifically for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports. Google Scholar also automatically analyzes and extracts citations and presents them as separate results, even if the documents they refer to are not online. This means your search results may include citations of older works and seminal articles that appear only in books or other offline publications. For more search tips, see JNet's Search page.
  
  
• Pick of the week for February 6, 2005: MSN Search MSN has finally officially rolled out its own search tool to compete with Yahoo and Google. While not as good as either, it does have a newer, sleeker interface. By clicking on the arrow next to the Search button, you can also access answers from the Microsoft Encarta encyclopedia. By clicking on "Search Builder" you get some easy-to-use advanced search features. For more search tools, see JNet's Search Pages.
  
  
• Pick of the week for January 30, 2005: Findory Like many web news tools, this website brings you news articles from thousands of worldwide sources. But what is different is that Findory adapts to show you interesting and relevant news based on your reading habits, in effect building a personalized newspaper for each reader. The more articles you click, the more the main page changes to suit your needs. What is also handy is that Findory stores the recent articles you have viewed and the news sources you visited. For more news search tools, see JNet's Find News pages.
  
  
• Pick of the week for January 23, 2005: Google Video Still in beta or test mode, this new Google tool is designed to let you search through TV transcripts of recent programs. So far it is limited to a handful of American stations and networks (PBS, CSPAN, Fox News) but Google promises they will be adding channels in the near future. You can also search by title, channel or station. For more video tools, see JNet's Search Video page.
  
  
• Pick of the week for January 16, 2005: Jux2 Most people think that the major search engines serve up similar results. In fact, tests show as many as 6 of the top ten results can be different. This web site allows you to compare the top 10 results on Google, Yahoo and Ask Jeeves. Instead of just seeing 10 highly ranked results from one search engine, you see 16-17 highly ranked results from the two combined on a single page. You can also install a browser button to have Jux2 right at your fingertips. For more search tips, see JNet's Search page.
  
  
• Pick of the week for January 9, 2005: Firefox Why settle for Microsoft's ubiquitous Internet Explorer browser when you can surf the web with a much more news-friendly tool called Firefox. It's open source, which means people keep coming with neat extensions to increase its functionality. Its main address bar is automatically a Google search engine, so if you don't know the web URL, just type in a name like "thailand tourism ministry" or "aids statistics" and you get the appropriate website. You can also set up live bookmarks with newsfeeds from sites like the BBC, New York Times or other media. For more browsing tips, see JNet's Tools page.
  
  

• Pick of the week for January 2, 2005: LexisNexis AlaCarte! Need the latest news on your topic? Search more than 6,000 of the world's leading news sources from the past 2 years. The Lexis database, one of the largest in the world, is widely used in big newsrooms but usually is far too expensive for individual journalists to enjoy. This slimmed-down version offers a free search and charges only $3 per article. You can also click the Search Additional Sources tab to select from more than 20,000 sources dating as far back as 1968. Plus, access to public records, and government information, company and industry reports and criminal and legal records. For more data tools. see JNet's Data page.