I'm constantly amazed by the depth and breadth of the knowledge of InformationWeek.com readers--and with your generous impulse to share that knowledge to assist others.

I can honestly say that, every day, I receive many E-mails from readers who offer tips, suggestions, or pointers for outstanding online resources. I collect all I can; gather, collate, and group them; then send the information back out in various columns and newsletters. But there's only one of me and many of you, and some excellent sites see daylight only slowly or, alas, not at all.

I'd like to remedy that today, by making this column a truly interactive one. Below, I'll list some (actually, 85!) of the very best help, reference, and test sites I know. In fact, many of these sites are on my own "Favorites/Bookmarks" lists--the ones I routinely turn to when I'm stumped by a technical question.

Although I hope the list will be helpful to you in its own right, it will be even better if you use InformationWeek's associated Listening Post forum to add your own nominees to the collection of great sites. By the time we're done, we should have an absolutely awesome aggregate list of good and proven sites and resources for tracking down and solving just about any kind of tech problem any of us might run into!

My one request and caveat is that you use the subject line in your posts to help identify the kind of site or resource you're discussing. With accurate subject lines, we'll all be better able to search for and find the type of information we're seeking. Thanks!

I've organized my personal favorites in these categories:

• General reference: dictionaries, encyclopedia, etc.
• General problem solving and troubleshooting references
• Sci-tech news sources
• Reliable security info/research
• Accurate and timely virus info
• Info on identifying hoaxes, myths, chain letters, et al
• Conversions (e.g. English/metric)
• Quick and dirty online translation tools
• HTML validation and related tools
• Browser problem/connection-speed analysis
• Online security tests
• General system health tests
• Search Fred's published tips, tricks, etc.
• Searching further afield

This is a personal list, so it's by no means a comprehensive roll call of every good site in every category. My list is just a starting point. That's where you come in. Please check it out, and add your own via the link at the bottom of the page!

General reference: dictionaries, encyclopedia, etc.

• OneLook (meta search): http://www.freetune.com/most_popular_pages.htm
• Britannica Online: http://www.britannica.com
• Many library tools: http://www.itools.com/research-it and http://www.libraryspot.com
• TechWeb TechEncyclopedia: http://www.techweb.com/encyclopedia
• Tech glossary: http://support.microsoft.com/support/glossary
• The Computing Research Repository: http://xxx.lanl.gov/archive/cs/intro.html
• Slang/jargon lookup: http://www.sabram.com/site/slang.html
• Acronym Finder: http://www.acronymfinder.com
• Meta-reference (many tools): http://www.columbia.edu/acis/bartleby/bartlett
• Thesaurus: http://www.thesaurus.com
• FAQ Finder (may be temporarily offline): http://ps.superb.net/FAQ
• Grammar/syntax; Common Errors In English: http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors

General problem solving and troubleshooting references

• General Windows support info from Microsoft (all Windows versions): http://support.microsoft.com and http://search.support.microsoft.com/kb/c.asp?fr=0&SD=GN&LN=EN-US
• Patches/downloads (Microsoft): http://corporate.windowsupdate.microsoft.com/en/default.asp and http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/search.asp
• Feature articles that lead to many other resources and sites
  • Hardware: http://content.techweb.com/winmag/library/1998/1001/fea0045.htm
  • Software: http://content.techweb.com/winmag/library/1998/1001/fea0045.htm
  • Win98Bugs And Fixes: http://content.techweb.com/winmag/library/1998/1201/cov0066.htm
  • 10 Ways To Make Win98 Run Better: http://content.techweb.com/ winmag/windows/ features/98runbetter/05.htm
  • 10 Ways To Make WinME Run Better: http://content.techweb.com/ winmag/windows/features/ merunbetter/default.htm
  • Hardware/software diagnostic tools and techniques: http://content.techweb.com/ winmag/library/1998/ 1001/fea0045g.htm
  • Resolving version conflicts: http://content.techweb.com/winmag/library/1998/1201/ana0010.htm