Loss of the Ugly Sense
I think it's really remarkable how some folks who otherwise have a perfectly good sense of what is ugly and what is not seem to lose all traces of what I call their “Ugly Sense” as soon as they start to put together a Web site. Unfortunately some of the worst offenders I see on a regular basis as I try to maintain the Naval & Maritime page of the World Wide Web Virtual Library: ship sites, which are typically put together by complete amateurs who were stationed on the USS Whatever sometime much earlier in their life. The content of these sites is typically wonderful, and the services they provide to get old shipmates together are admirable. But the pages are a remarkable cross-section of all that is the worst of Web design. Apparently someone created a page early on, and everyone else proceeded to copy all of the WORST features! They look like a walking catalog of Charlie Morris' “Amateur Web Sites - the Top Ten Signs” plus several other egregiously bad design features that just bug the heck out of me: all centered text (really hard to read); playing Anchors Aweigh at eighty decibels the second you reach the site; and pages with nothing but a HUGE title and a picture of the ship (really big) at the top of the page, forcing you to scroll halfway down the page before there's anything of real significance to look at. More on this to come as I'm still doing some research...but it just amazes me that this many folks could have so completely misplaced their “Ugly Sense”.

Muppet Madness
Unfortunately that Elmo kid has made life miserable for an older, bluer monster on Sesame Street. Yes, that's right: Grover is Bitter. But if you want to know about any episode of the Muppet Show in excrutiating detail, you've got to check out the Kermitage.

How NOT to install computer hardware
This one is a must-read for in-the-trenches IT folks:
http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/article/1672/. Pretty funny and sadly true.
[From the Netsurfer Digest]

My Favorite Reference Sites
Here are my favorite reference sites...I've been at this Web stuff for a while and I've looked at many but I think these are the best:

Published Reference Sources Online:
Reference @ Bartelby.com http://www.bartleby.com/reference/. Dictionary, Encyclopedia, Thesauri, Usage, Quotations, and more; has my personal favorite reference source, the Columbia Encyclopedia.
Librarian Mediated:
Digital Librarian: a librarian's choice of the best of the Web http://www.digital-librarian.com/. Possibly the best one-person index of Web content.
Librarians' Index to the Internet http://lii.org/. Another good guide by librarians.
Human Mediated:
One Minute Web Guide http://www.ancientthespians.com/. A great starting point for Web surfing; broad coverage, intelligently selected sites.
refdesk.com http://www.refdesk.com/. "The single best source for facts" Don't know if that's really true but it is very complete.
World Wide Web Virtual Library http:/www.vlib.org/. Even though I'm on the Council of the WWWVL, I find it to be a bit uneven in coverage---but when it's good (history, easterns cultures) it is GREAT.
Encylopedia:
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/. An Open Source encyclopedia; I'm a contributor!
Magazine & Journal Articles:
FindArticles http://www.findarticles.com/PI/index.jhtml. Articles from the past five years from over 300 magazines and journals, free!
The Big List of Reference Sources:
Google Directory -> Reference http://directory.google.com/Top/Reference/