This has to be one of, if not the most popular and useful toolbar around. From the toolbar, you can check out the web, get pictures, check the news….and anything else you need to do.

Here is another hugely popular toolbar. You get a chance to surf the web with this one. You need to sighn up first, check off a list of you favorites, as in things you do, things your interested in, and hobbies. The more you check off, the more sites you "stumble" through. There are also "like and dislike" buttons that you can rate the sites by. There s also a button that you can stumble through your friends fav's.

I love the "new" Triond toolbar! It's a Firefox add-on, and I use it almost as much as the Stumble toolbar. I put new in quotes because I'm not sure just how new it is, I just found it a couple day's ago. My favorite part of it is the Random part. Click this, and it takes you to different area's within the Triond website. From there, you see all the different sub-categories there are too. Which is great for thinking of what to write about.

I never noticed there were so many sub-categories before. I normally find a topic and write it up, then put it in the place it fits, but now I think I will try it the other way around… find a sub-category and write up an article for it.

The toolbar also has your money amount that you make too, which I like. Also, your friends and what they write on. And any comments left by your readers.

Now if only Associated Content had a toolbar too!

Has your internet experience grown listless? StumbleUpon.com is a curious take on the hyper cyber-social networking trend via toolbar. After free registration for an account the new user can select from various criteria of website (Ex. Arts, Bizarre, Satire). The small toolbar provides you with one button with which to explore millions of websites based on your specific or unspecific interests.

Once to the randomized page, vote thumbs up or down to both rate the video and lead you on to relevant other sites. The toolbar's appeal stops there for most users however the People section of the website can link your profile to others with similar likes/dislikes, locations, and votes which are saved for view on your profile.

VBS.TV - Bravely Leading The Revolution

A new something close to internet TiVo, VBS.TV is bringing programming found no where on TV to your fingertips. With Spike Jonze (director: Being John Malkovich) as creative director, this online broadcast network in streaming all original content 24/7. At VBS.TV - music, pop/sub-culture and international news purée with modern documentary style storytelling.

A popular travel series, entitled “The Vice Guide to Travel” is the offspring of an international aesthetic, comprised of 20 countries. Topics of travel covered include: being shot in fashion-minded bulletproof wear, trudges through nuclear snow at Chernobyl and an exploration in Philippine ride pimping. Enjoy responsibly.

FecalFace

What is color, blog, and art all over? FecalFace.com started out as a low budget art zine and quickly found popularity and community online in 2000. Currently its features vary from user artist news and interviews to gallery listings to a forum of dedicated members/bloggers.

Well designed and easy to navigate Fecal Face can lead you to new status among your art loving friends. One of the best features of the site is the “How to” instruction blog: tackling pinhole cameras to screen printing technique. Find a reason to doodle more with the weekly Free Fridayz art competition; past topics like games, robots and aquatic often result in profound interpretation.

I started writing search engine result pages for Mahalo about a month ago out of a need to pay my bills. I didn't know or care what Mahalo's purpose was, so long as they weren't harming puppies or small children. I did like the idea of saying to my friends, “What do you mean, have I heard of this band? I wrote the search engine result page for them!”

As I began learning the ins and outs of writing these pages (primarily by studying the Mahalo pages made by other guides), I became aware of Mahalo's purpose anyway. Like many people, I thought it seemed a lovely idea for those poor souls who weren't capable of searching for themselves. It wasn't until I found myself bookmarking half the links I found on those Mahalo pages that I realized something important: This is not just your elderly mother's search engine.

Mahalo is an awesome resource. Perhaps all the controversy surrounding it is due to a misunderstanding of how it can best be used. I doubt it was ever intended to replace Google, especially since it incorporates Google results when there isn't an appropriate Mahalo page. I think Mahalo's intended function is to reduce Google type searching and save time, and it has done that marvelously for me.

When I use Mahalo to look up, for instance, bands I'm interested in, I find free MP3's for many of them, without the bothersome, ad-riddled search that finding these for myself often entails. I find song samples without having to look for them in more than one place. Lyrics and, frequently, tabs are also right there, sparing much annoyance. (You know what I mean if you search for tabs regularly.) When I'm looking for general info and media on my favorite bands, I will always go to Mahalo first. I can hardly tell you how thrilled I am that it exists.

A benefit I've newly discovered is that there is no need to bookmark all the links I find on Mahalo. I only need to bookmark the Mahalo page I find them on, if I must bookmark something. Whenever I want to check out great pictures of the White Stripes, I can just go back to the White Stripes Mahalo page, and I can also check for news on them while I'm there. The online texts by my favorite author will be listed on his Mahalo page any time I want to reference them, along with the great fan site that made me laugh and the link where I can buy his latest book.

When looking for specific information, a Google type search engine will still be your best bet. If I want to know why Amanda Palmer wrote the song "Bad Habit", I'll probably go with Google first, as that's likely to be the fastest way to get the information. But if I've just heard Dresden Dolls for the first time, and I want to know as much as I can about them, it's pretty much guaranteed that the best links will be on their Mahalo page. In this case, Mahalo, where I can simply click on high quality, organized links, is much faster and more satisfying. I get straight down to being immersed in the band, without ever hearing the dreaded, “Congratulations! You have won a free iPod!” (Uh huh, and that's the third one I've won today. Oh joy.)

Don't let my obsession with pop culture give you the idea that Mahalo is only a resource for bands, books, and movies. Mahalo has some excellent pages on health conditions, and I'd recommend it as a good starting place for anyone wanting to know more about a diagnosis or a suspected diagnosis. Mahalo is also one of the best resources I've seen for planning a vacation. It will be my first stop when I start plotting my road trip to the east coast this fall. In addition, Mahalo has some great how-to pages on anything from writing a resume to learning a language; thorough pages on historical figures for school kids doing homework; tips and tools for popular web 2.0 sites, and it's a great source for recipes. (Try searching on cheesecake... mmmm.) There are more topics and more kinds of useful information on Mahalo than I have the time and space to list.

With all this in mind, I broke down and installed Mahalo Follow (Mahalo's browser add-on) a few days ago. I don't like extra toolbars, especially if they appear like they might be intrusive, so I did this skittishly and with every intention of removing it if it so much as looked at me funny. To my delight, the Mahalo Follow sidebar can be closed except when you need it, and then it can quickly be reactivated by a button on your regular toolbar. When activated, it shows Mahalo search results in a sidebar right next to the results from your regular search engine. I love this because I never miss a Mahalo page on a topic that interests me, and I don't waste time in Google when Mahalo has already found what I need. The add-on also includes a Mahalo toolbar for searching exclusively on Mahalo. If you don't need this, it can easily be deactivated from your browser menu without affecting the use of the sidebar.

Keep in mind that Mahalo is in Alpha. This means that there are a lot of search results pages that haven't been written yet. Those pages aren't there now, but they will be soon, as Mahalo moves towards Beta and beyond. I'm seeing a lot of impatience on the web as people complain, “I did a search on lima beans and they weren't there. I love lima beans! I hate Mahalo.”

Give them time. Lima beans will be there.