It's PC to Read About Your PC

Reading PC Magazine isn't exactly a pleasure; I consider it a duty. Like a lot of folks, I shop, read, learn, and work on a PC (a PC and two laptops, in fact) so I think I ought to try to understand the machines that are, for better or for worse, embedded in my life.

I know, as sure as I'll have to see a doctor when I get sick, there are some computer illnesses I'll have to see a help desk technician to heal. And then God help me (and my PC) - because like doctors, some help desk technicians have great "keyboardside" manners, and some don't.

But I digress. The latest issue of PC Magazine contains a dandy list of the editors' top 200 websites. Among them were a few for readers and writers:

Project Gutenberg features more than 20,000 books in the public domain;
WOWIO is an e-book site that offers loads of free books, in easy-to-download PDFs;
Footnote digitizes and uploads every document housed by the National Archives (!); and
Ninjawords, for when you've just gotta know the meaning of a word, and you don't wanna wade through several dictionary sites to get it.

I also enjoyed reading about Kiva, an organization that's reinventing what it means to "share the wealth." The site helps users make small loans to entrepreneurs worldwide - for example, $200 to a shopkeeper in Kenya - and then, helps loan-makers recoup their dough. Sounds good to me.