Pronunciation, Weird Files, Warnings And An Explorer (Link Roundup)

A number of interesting tools came to my attention today. Rather than try to list each as a separate post, I will do what all good bloggers do and resort to a link list. Here goes:

• HowJSay.com -- One of the easiest ways to lose credibility while making a presentation is to mispronounce words (I will not easily forget the officer in Bosnia with IFOR who consistently mispronounced the Bosnian river port, Brcko, as "Brick-o" instead of "Birch-ko" and the impact it had on his perceived credibility). This handy little site actually pronounces the word for you so you can hear the proper pronunciation. It only works with English words right now but hopefully they will expand the list.

• Whatisthatfile.com -- Ever wonder what that weird file is on your computer? Can you safely delete it? Is it malware or worse? This site collects and catalogs these oddities. All you need to do it enter the file name and it spits out an answer concerning the file.

• Warningsigngenerator.com -- For all your warning sign needs.

• Digg Explorer 1.1 -- This is my new favorite mash-up (i.e. combination of two web based thingys to make a new web based thingy). I don't know about you but I don't find Digg very useful. I know Digg is enormously popular but it seems like you have to be on it all the time and I just can't do (don't want to do) that. The strong focus on tech issues also doesn't help (me, obviously). This little widget (which would be better if it were embeddable) helps cut through the Digg clutter very quickly and easily. Many thanks to Neoformix for putting it together!