the best of 4

One of the many wonders of the web is that it opens the door of opportunity for people all over the world to learn about pretty much anything they can

imagine. For instance, I've always fancied learning Chinese, and so I was delighted to find Mandarin Tools. The website itself is a simple and plain design, but I think that's rather fitting for the elegant culture it embraces. You'll need to have java and also Chinese characters installed to make the most of the site - including using the Flash Cards of over 1,000 of the most commonly used Chinese characters, to help you get to grips with the language. In fact there's a lot more to this website than just tools to help you learn Chinese. There's a dictionary, translation tools, a currency converter a Chinese calendar, and a whole lot more. There's even a fun little applet that will create a Chinese name inspired by your western name. Just add your given and family names, the characteristics you want to be associated with and a few other details and then click to get your new name. I'm afraid you're on your own when it comes to pronunciation though.

Quite a few of you ask about websites to help you design your own place on the 'net, but one viewer wrote in asking if we had any advice about hosting now that he's finished building his website. Well Tom from Canada - this one's for you. Web Host Coach is a website packed with reviews of current web-hosting solutions. In addition to reviews of hosting companies, there's also tips and advice about how to manage your web-hosting contract, and what you should look out for during the decision making process. For the truly dedicated among you there's plenty of articles and news stories to browse through too. One word of warning before you make your choice of web host - read the disclaimer at the bottom of the About Us section, as it clears up any misunderstandings about a possible conflict of interest.

Talking of personal web pages, this next site is a great example of something totally pointless that just made me giggle for ages. Turtlekiss is the home of Koopa who, according to his owner, is the world's first and only internationally collected turtle artist. Yes you did read that right - a turtle - or tortoise as they're known in some parts of the world - artist. You'll have to explore the website to learn more about the hows and the wheres, but Kira reassures visitors to the site that Koopa is completely responsible for the works of art displayed on these pages, and far from being harmed or distressed in the process, actually enjoys it. You're going to have to make your own mind up about what qualifies as art in this modern day and age - but I certainly think Koopa's work has as much claim to the title as a lot of other paintings in the world.

Do you know someone who is crazy about their car? Or maybe it's you that spends all Saturday afternoon out on the drive with a bucket of sudsy water and a chamis leather, polishing up your pride and joy before cruising the streets to soak up admiring glances from passers by? Well now you can get a kick out of showing off your car without even leaving the garage, by posting a picture of it on Rate Car Pics. This website works along the same principles as 'person rating' websites like 'hot or not', only here you'll find nothing but cars. If you like cars, I guess that has to be a good thing - but even if you're only vaguely interested and don't have a dream machine of your own to submit, you can still participate by viewing and then rating the pictures posted by other users of the site. It's all pretty self-explanatory so I won't go into detail - but do have a look at the top 10 cars section. There are some seriously tasty motors in there. I wonder if my mini would make it into the top 10? One thing that did confuse me a bit - clicking on either of the trucks tabs at the top of the screen brought up pictures of more cars. Nice cars they are, but definitely not trucks.

Ever wondered what would happen to you if you were standing 150 km away from the impact site of an asteroid? To find out the answer to this question head to the Earth Impacts Effect programme website, where scientists have launched an online calculator that works out the effects of an asteroid colliding with Earth. This simple, text-based form allows you to choose the size and type of space object and the distance you are standing from the impact site, and then the program calculates the scale of the fireball, the size of the crater left behind and even whether the impact will ignite your clothes. This is an interesting scientific exercise, but to be honest I can see no practical purpose, as I doubt you'd be able to run fast enough to avoid an asteroid travelling at 51 km/s.

With the season of BBQ's and long summer nights well and truly upon us, I've been making use of the next website quite a lot to check that my outdoor plans are not going to be rained off. Metcheck is a weather forecasting site that is so nicely presented and animated that it's a pleasure to use, even if it does forecast a washout. Obtaining the weather check for your area is simplicity itself - just enter your postcode and then click forecast. The default option is a 48-hour forecast, but you can choose 7-day and even 14-day options in the Free Areas section of the left hand menu panel. And who couldn't understand the forecast page itself? It's brilliantly laid out and really easy on the eye. There's even a cute little graphic on the right of the page that makes it perfectly clear what conditions you can expect at what time of day - from clear and sunny, to rainy and cloudy. Aside from this really useful weather forecasting tool there's a whole host of other great stuff, including articles and stories, and tools to predict the weather at upcoming sporting and other important events. My favourite bit is the BBQ invitation tool, which steps you through a quick and easy wizard to help you plan, and then invite all your guests to an upcoming BBQ or outdoor event - weather permitting of course.

Are you a Bollywood fan? This lavish style of movie production from India - the biggest movie industry in the world - has enjoyed something of a global boom in recent years, and BollywoodWorld seems to be a great place to start if you want to know more. For the most part, this website is just a portal leading to a collection of news articles, reviews and interviews with Bollywood Stars on other websites. The central panel on the homepage has links to all the latest editions on the 'net, and clicking through to access them will leave a frame at the top left hand corner of your screen that you can easily click to go back to BollywoodWorld. If you've never seen any Bollywood movies then you're in for a treat. Clicking through the trailers under Now Showing and Coming Soon will give you a fairly good idea what to expect. There's also a lively forum and chat channel available from the main site if you want to get involved with the Bollywood-loving online community.

Finally, if all that surfing has brought on a healthy appetite, then check out this collection of video demonstrations designed to help you achieve culinary wizardry. This page is part of a bigger recipe source website called Epicurious - as in the famous philosopher, I guess - but what I liked about this particular section was the clear and easy to follow video demonstrations that take you step by step through various kitchen skills. So far I have learnt how to poach an egg, and make the perfect béchamel sauce - so I'm halfway to a decent breakfast already. To play a video, choose the section that interests you and click the arrow by select a video, then make your selection from the drop down menu. Delicious as they are, the videos do take quite a while to start playing, and don't even think about running them on a standard connection unless you have a lot of patience.

You don't have to be a scientist to have an interest in science, especially not when there are so many cool interactive sites on the 'net dedicated to bringing complex educational topics alive with a bunch of high-tech bells and whistles. DNA interactive is one of the best examples I've seen of this type of website. It merges a variety of media - pictures, text, videos and games - into a seamless interactive experience that I found really rewarding, and hugely educational. As the name would suggest, it's all about DNA, and the opening page displays clearly defined subject headings across the top to guide even the least scientific minds through the pages. Hovering your mouse over a heading pops up a very useful brief summary. From travelling through time to chart the history of DNA science, to cracking the DNA code, each section reveals further pages housing all sorts of videos and educational games. Regardless of how much you know about the subject you'll find these clear and visually stimulating pages a great resource to aid you in your studies. There's even a section for teachers, which should help them to inspire young minds in the classroom.

If all that science is a bit heavy duty for you, it's nice to know that interactivity online is still being used for just fun and games. Morphases had me entertained for hours, and works in a really impressive way, too. After a very quick loading time you're presented with the Morphases editor, a flash tool that allows you to move and morph the elements of a human face to most amusing ends. Click Random face to begin and you'll be presented with a picture of a face, and some buttons and dials. Select one or more element of the face in the right hand panel, then use the dials to alter its size, orientation, and position. Click the Image Search tab to add things like eyewear and beards, or even to change parts of the face you don't like. To do this, just select the part of the face you would like to replace using the bar buttons, before clicking the picture you want the alternative image to come from. Have a mess around and then why not click the E-send tab to email it to a friend and give them a laugh too.

Talking of games, our next URL, Netives, is a website packed full of gorgeous free games - don't you just love free stuff? The level of detail and quality that goes into some of these games never ceases to amaze. You'll need to have the java plugin installed and activated to play but once you do you'll have access to a vault of really fun and addictive games. My personal favourite is Marble, a strategy puzzle game where you have to remove groups of coloured marbles from the board so that you can clear as many as possible in total. Sounds pretty straight forward I know, but this is one seriously addictive game, so I suggest you don't fire it up when you have something important to do, such as writing the scripts for a collection of website reviews, for example! The site itself is nicely laid out, with clear instructions always accessible, and the option to enter your name and show off a little if you manage to pull off a high score. Also see http://www.arcadehq.com/ for online flash games.

Finally, if you use email and chat rooms at all you'll probably have noticed the prevalent use of something known as a smiley - a face, usually sideways, that is made up out of a handful of common word processing characters. Confused? Have a look at Colondee, an entertaining website which bills itself as the Internet Smilie Database. Within these clean and nicely presented pages you'll see hundreds of examples of commonly and not-so-commonly recognised smilies. I think the designers of the website meant it more as a bit of fun than a serious database project. The Smilie Of The Day section is probably a good place to browse if you're just looking out of curiosity, or you can check out the directory by mood or orientation, and search for a particular smilie - such as sad - by using the search function.

iParenting is a brilliant website aimed at helping parents and parents-to-be all over the world. It's a really nice looking website too, with the front page having a real glossy magazine feel to it, and a clear but stylish navigation panel down the left hand side. This panel links through to the bulk of the website, which is actually a network of more than 40 websites devoted to the entire family lifecycle, from preconception through the teenage years. Click which stage you're at with your own family, then browse through the pages within that section. They seem to be stuffed full of interesting and engagingly written articles, with a good spattering of pictures, artwork and interactivity to keep it visually stimulating. Whether you're wrestling with your worrisome teenager about their choices for further education, or want a little help planning and preparing for your birth, you're bound to find some little gem of information in these pages that will help you towards a better parenting experience.

How many of you cannot remember birthdays? I'm famous for forgetting them, but not anymore! Birthday Alarm is a brilliant idea, which does exactly what it says in the URL - it provides a timely birthday alarm for all your registered contacts, and even sends you a happy birthday wish on your own birthday too. After a quick registration process you're given a passage of text that you can cut and paste into your own email client, asking friends and relatives to log on and enter their birthdays. I was particularly pleased with this method as it doesn't require you to enter your contacts email addresses into the website itself. Some people may object to you giving their email address away to this kind of site, as it's possible it will end up on a database for spamming - at least this way the choice is theirs. Use the navigation tabs at the top to move through the sections, entering details about where, and with what frequency, you want to be warned about an upcoming birthday. There's even the option to send an e-card through the website, leaving you no excuses for not getting in touch on that special day. The only thing I have to remember now is to check my emails regularly.

Ever felt the need to complain? Just having a rant about something that is bugging you can often go a long towards easing the tension - which is what the creators of Complaints had in mind. It's basically a database of personal, first-hand, consumer experiences with products and services. It's worth noting that Complaints does not censor messages, or business replies, or investigate them for accuracy - although there are posting guidelines in the How It Works section that you're expected to adhere to if you want to post a complaint. And doing that is really easy. Just click the link on the front page, and your email client will be opened with the right address inserted. If you include email addresses for the business you're complaining about then the website will forward it to them, and you might even get a reply posted. If you have nothing to complain about, just browsing the listed complaints can be quite interesting too, and may even help you avoid similar problems in the future yourself.

We get lots of letters asking for more websites that deal with the exploration of space, and luckily for you lot there is certainly no shortage of this type of project on the world wide web. Our first site today is the home of GALEX, a California Institute of Technology led project, which launched an orbiting space telescope in April last year. The core purpose of the mission is to observe galaxies in ultraviolet light across 10 billion years of cosmic history. Such observations will tell scientists how galaxies, the basic structures of our Universe, evolve and change. Like most NASA supported websites, the layout is really clear and easy to follow, with the navigation panel on the left providing access to all the main sections about the mission, its findings, educational elements and quick facts. If you're interested in this kind of thing then it really is worth taking your time to step through each section and absorb it, starting with About GALEX. Despite the highly scientific nature of the information, it's written in plain and simple language, and nicely illustrated throughout with pictures, diagrams and movies. Words that you see underlined will open into a quick info window explaining more about that part of the technology. This is definitely a site worth book marking and returning to regularly, as it will be continuously updated with pictures and news during the 29-month mission of the GALEX satellite.