Web Pages I Have Been Involved WithBBC News Online - Simply the most comprehensive source of general news on the internet.
New Scientist - For two years it was my surrogate child, my day job and occaisionally my nightmare.
NewsScape - This was to have been a "Moreover killer" - a better news link gathering application.
Network of the World - Broadband video-centric site covering gaming, MP3 music, digital film and art and more. I was its Communities Director, responsible for creating and nurturing virtual communities there using message boards, chat, IM and more. Part of it lives on as gamer.tv.
The Internet Movie Database - I suggested grafting a Firefly-style recommendations service to its existing ratings system - the work is in (perpetual) progress.
Best of British Web Pages (deceased)- Personal Computer World's first official appearance on the Web, in 1995 (and my first Web project). It won an International Digital Media Award. Since I left PCW, however, it was first neglected then quietly dropped. I sometimes wonder if it could have been my winning lottery ticket if I'd only been allowed to keep it up...
Emotional Support on the Internet - I helped its principal author find resources on CompuServe in about 1996 back when there were few other options for people. I am pleased to see it is still around.
I am the editor for the Islington section of the Open Directory Project.
I am the webmaster for newingtongreen.org - the site of the Newington Green Action Group which is working to improve a local park and revive the surrounding area.
Essential Utilities
Google - Thanks to its system of ranking pages by the number of links there are to those pages, it often seems to almost miraculously find exactly the pages you are looking for. If it doesn't turn anything up and I'm sure there's something out there I use Copernic, which queries several search engines at once. If I am looking for a broad range of sites in a category instead of just a keyword match I use Google Directory which combines Google's prioritising with the Open Directory Project's user-created website index.
Yahoo UK - Not comprehensive or up to date, but still an excellent place to start, and the profusion of national Yahoos is a welcome recognition that the whole world doesn't see the internet the same way.
News
These days it is hard to beat Moreover when searching for news from across the net. I usually read The Economist on good old-fashioned paper every week, but I am pleased to be able to find it on the web as well (though you can only read it in full if you subscribe).
Edutainment
I read Salon daily - in part to prove to myself that my English degree hasn't gone to waste, though it is not what it once was. Arts & Letters Daily is a very handy way of quickly skimming the best articles related to writing and thinking. The Utne Reader Online and and Slate are also worth the occasional visit (though Slate's concentration on inside-the-beltway politics is off-putting).
The Internet Movie Database A mammoth database of movie information of all kinds. It was originally put together by volunteers, in one of the internet's larger non-profit ventures, but now, perhaps inevitably, it has "gone commercial", though it still relies largely on the public for its content.
Games Domain One of the better sources for computer game related information on the Web - particularly strategy gaming, and the most extraordinary thing about it is it has been largely the work of one man who started it in his spare time. Both it and the IMBD are also British in origin, though neither waves the flag about it. I have to admit, though that in recent months better-resourced super-sites from corporate goliaths like Gamespot - are where I chiefly go for regular game news.
Britannica Online Before the Web, the best single source for information on everything was probably the Encyclopedia Britannica. Britannica Online doesn't give you the flashy graphics of its CD-ROM based cousins, but the quality of the information provided is unmatched - and now it is free of charge!
Dilbert - The only mainstream American comic strip written by (and for) computer-using people in large companies. Two weeks worth is available free online. I also read Doonesbury (the leading American political cartoonist) online every day.
Also on a lighter note, Memepool is a daily-updated collection of fairly consistently-interesting links to random sites across the Internet. It's hard to describe - just go there and check it out!
Alas, poor Firefly has bitten the dust. For my money it was once the most interesting original idea for a major web site and the best use of the interactive potential of the Web, but though the idea of collaborative filtering it pioneered is now being used across the Web, the original was bought by Microsoft and gradually withered on the vine. I was using it back when it was just a project inside MIT's Media Lab.
If you like to send people web postcards but hate the awfulness of the selections usually offered, try Corbis - they have millions of images and all are available to send as postcards for free.
Software
As a fanatical user of the Psion Series 5mx palmtop, I am a regular reader of TuCows PDA News, the best daily Psion news service (though TuCows' purchase of the original service caused a real drop in quality).
Probably the coolest single internet tool I have on my PC is Powermarks, which is a simple Windows utility that allows me to have over 2,000 bookmarks but get to the precise one I want in seconds.
Other
Robot Wisdom WebLog by Jorn Barger is what inspired me to do my own weblog. I don't know how he has the time to produce the profusion of links and commentary he does, but I am grateful he does. Not everything is interesting to me, of course, but enough is that I keep coming back for more. Less well known but very worthwhile is Eliot Gelwan's Follow Me Here weblog. As he puts it, "you'll find social commentary, criticism, cynicism, conjunctions and conundrums, outrage. Recent scientific, technical and healthcare developments. Occasional rants. Common sense and crazy wisdom. Exciting artistic and cultural news. Human pathos, whimsy, folly, darkness and depravity."
There are also some excellent commercial weblogs these days - notably the Guardian's and the Utne Reader's.