Share pictures and videos with your friends and family
Email attachments are an excellent way to ship snapshots anywhere in the world for free. If you have more than one or two pictures or videos and you want to share them with more than one or two people, making an online photo album is the convenient way to go.Or, create an account at Flickr or ImageShack to upload your photo and video files, and tell the site who else can see them. You can also use Instagram and Snapchat.
Watch movies, TV, and ads
The internet has created a new way for makers of short and experimental movies to find an audience. The most popular is Google’s YouTube, whose users upload vast amounts of video. You can upload your own videos, too, as long as you follow YouTube guidelines. TED Talks are short lectures about Technology, Education, and Design, and are almost always interesting.Hulu is a subscription-based streaming video service offering live and on-demand TV and movies.
Netflix is another subscription-based streaming video service with TV series and movies.
ISpot.tv features the best current ads and classics.
Listen to current and classic radio programs
National Public Radio and Public Radio International in the United States keep many of their past programs available online. You can also use the sites’ search features to browse for stories you missed completely. Some radio shows have their own websites, such as Car Talk and This American Life.
Play checkers or bridge
Or play chess, poker, hearts, backgammon, cribbage, go, or any other board game or card game. The classic games hold up well against the ever more bloody electronic games. If you used to play Diplomacy, try playdiplomacy.com.True bridge aficionados like to think of bridge not as a card game but, rather, as a way of life. You can round up a bridge foursome at bridgebase.com (for free) and okbridge.com ($99 per year after a free trial period). Many free and fee sites are listed at greatbridgelinks.com.
Play lots more online games
You can find willing gaming partners at any time of the day or night at sites such as games.yahoo.com, www.games.com, and Microsoft’s zone.msn.com.Another good site for both single-person and multiplayer games is addicting games.com.
Words with Friends enables you to play a Scrabble-like word game with friends and strangers. Download the app for your smartphone or tablet.
Find out what your stuff is worth
You can use eBay to find out the value of almost anything — at least, anything that has sold on eBay in the past 90 days — by searching completed eBay auctions.You need an eBay account in order to search completed auctions, so register for a free account if you don’t already have one. Then click the Advanced Search link. Type key words about your priceless treasure into the Search bar and select the Completed Listings check box. When you click the Search button, you see all auctions with those keywords and the item’s final selling price.
Build your own jumbo jet
Airbus builds airplanes, including the very, very, very large A380 superjumbo. Normally, an A380 lists for $300 million, but if that number is a little out of your price range, or you don’t have space for one in your garage, Airbus Goodies has some paper versions you can print, cut out, fold, and fly. It also has some nice screen wallpaper pictures.Visit art museums around the world
Art museums are interesting places to spend rainy afternoons. Now you can visit museums and galleries all over the world by using your browser. Some favorites include the Louvre in Paris, Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.Check out the amazing American Memory collection of historical photos.
Tour the Earth
The modestly named Google Earth downloadable program lets you fly around the earth and zoom in and out. After you get fairly close to the ground, you find links to pictures contributed by users, Wikipedia links, and enough to keep you busy for hours.Or, check out Google Maps: Visit an urban area and click Street View.
Tour the solar system
In the last half of the 20th century, probes visited several comets and asteroids and every planet except Pluto. The probes sent back amazing pictures: storms on Jupiter, oceans on Europa, mudslides on Mars, and the Earth at night.Here are some fascinating space sites:
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NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day
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NASA's Earth at Night
Build your own world
Virtual worlds are electronic places you can visit on the web. You create a personal action figure, or avatar, that walks, talks, and emotes. When you’re in one of these worlds, your avatar interacts with the avatars of other people who are logged on to virtual surroundings that range from quite realistic to truly fantastic.The biggest, most successful online worlds are World of Warcraft, which costs money, and RuneScape, which is free.