The Best of Ang Peregrino Recommends

Last week, I posted my 50^th fea­tured web­site in Ang Pere­grino Rec­om­mends. That is a great mile­stone for this blog since that means many things: 1) I have checked out 50 other web­sites and given link love to all of them, 2) I have done this for free so I do not feel any pres­sure to post any site I do not like. So you are assured that all the rec­om­men­da­tions in Ang Pere­grino Rec­om­mends were done of my own free will and because I really found them cool.

I started the first Ang Pere­grino Rec­om­mends post on Jan­u­ary 21, 2008 and have been con­sis­tently rec­om­mend­ing cool websites.

Here are my Top 10 Favorites among the 50 I have rec­om­mended so far.

10) Post­Se­cret

Post­Se­cret is an ongo­ing com­mu­nity art project in which peo­ple mail their secrets anony­mously on one side of a home­made post­card. Frank War­ren started the project, and since Jan­u­ary 1, 2005, has col­lected upwards of 2,500 post­card secrets from the US and around the world. I visit this web­site when I need to pray and just need to relax. And yes, some of the secrets there are things I would’ve sent myself.

9) Inno­cen­tive

There are two types of mar­ket in Inno​cen​tive​.com: the SEEKERS are the orga­ni­za­tions with chal­leng­ing prob­lems, and the SOLVERS are the smart peo­ple with cre­ative solu­tions. Inno­cen­tive brings the two together, and the results are just wonderful.

8) Buy Shoes. Save Lives

One of the first fea­tures on a web­site for a cause, Buy Shoes. Save Live is lit­er­ally that– when you buy shoes, you save lives.

Klash are hand-stitched, locally made shoes tra­di­tion­ally worn by the Kurds in Iraq. The Kurds have been mak­ing this hand-made shoes since 600 BC (accord­ing to one account). Known for their dura­bil­ity and detail, it’s not just merely shoes any­more. Because of the Buy Shoes Save Lives Move­ment, when you buy Klash, you’re not just buy­ing the shoes, you’re sav­ing the lives of Iraqi chil­dren who need heart surgeries.

7) Drop­ping Knowl­edge

This is an attempt to be a repos­i­tory of wis­dom– a think­ing man’s Answer​.Com. Drop​ping​Knowl​edge​.Org invites you to “ask and answer ques­tions cov­er­ing social themes of global sig­nif­i­cance. When you ask in order to under­stand, and answer in order to share, that is what we mean by drop­ping knowledge.”

6) Dear God

I like Dear​-God​.Net because it con­nects me to the rest of human­ity and there are prayers I can always relate with. Some­times when I’m in a rut myself, I just click on Dear God’s Humor let­ters to laugh a lit­tle or to try to find some Hope in life. Some­times though, I check on prayers about death. They are full of ques­tions like my own, and full of suf­fer­ing, and doubt that mir­rors mine. And the prayers make me feel that I am part of the human family.

5) PacLand

Pacland is the reader’s digest of every­thing about Manny Pac­quiao on the inter­net. It is a col­lec­tion of links to Manny Pac­quiao articles—news about his train­ing, arti­cles about his coach Fred­die Roach, com­men­taries on his fights, opin­ions about his being the present #1 Pound-for-Pound fighter in the world and even on his many adven­tures here in the philip­pines and around the world.

4) Rags to Riches

This is my first Ang Pere­grino Rec­om­mends site.

Rags2Riches is not a char­i­ta­ble orga­ni­za­tion, instead it is a social busi­ness enter­prise that helps the women—already pro­duc­tive mem­bers of their community—get the true worth of their hard work. Stu­dents and pro­fes­sors of Ate­neo de Manila Uni­ver­sity, as well as var­i­ous other vol­un­teers includ­ing promi­nent alumni of De La Salle Uni­ver­sity such as the fea­tured fash­ion designer and Robby Car­mona work towards earn­ing fair prof­its and sus­tain­able liveli­hood for the women of Payatas.

3) TED

In 1984, peo­ple from those three worlds came together in a con­fer­ence to dis­cuss their respec­tive exper­tise and in order to find ways for pos­si­ble con­ver­gences. The first TED included demos of the newly released Mac­in­tosh com­puter and Sony com­pact disc, while math­e­mati­cian Benoit Man­del­brot demon­strated how to map coast­lines with his newly dis­cov­ered frac­tals and AI guru Mar­vin Min­sky out­lined his pow­er­ful new model of the mind.

Since that time, the annual con­fer­ence has brought together sci­en­tists, philoso­phers, musi­cians, reli­gious lead­ers, phil­an­thropists and many oth­ers. TED brings together the world’s most fas­ci­nat­ing thinkers and doers, who are chal­lenged to give “the talk of their lives” (in 18 min­utes or less). TED speak­ers have included Bill Gates, Frank Gehry, Jane Goodall, Al Gore, Billy Gra­ham, Peter Gabriel, Quincy Jones, Bono. And yet, as TED con­fer­ence par­tic­i­pants have found out, the real stars have been the unex­pected: Li Lu, a key orga­nizer of the Tianan­men Square stu­dent protest; Aimee Mullins, a Par­a­lympics com­peti­tor who tried out a new pair of arti­fi­cial legs onstage; or Jen­nifer Lin, a 14-year-old pianist whose 6-minute impro­vi­sa­tion moved the audi­ence to tears.

2) Zen­Hab­its

Zen Habits is one of the Top 100 blogs on the Inter­net, and cov­ers the fol­low­ing top­ics: achiev­ing goals, pro­duc­tiv­ity, being orga­nized, GTD, moti­va­tion, elim­i­nat­ing debt, sav­ing, get­ting a flat stom­ach, eat­ing healthy, sim­pli­fy­ing, liv­ing fru­gal, par­ent­ing, hap­pi­ness, and suc­cess­fully imple­ment­ing good habits.

A lot of gems here!

And my top Rec­om­men­da­tion for this first run of 50 web­sites is:

1) BNET

BNET was cre­ated with a sim­ple goal in mind: to pro­vide work­ing pro­fes­sion­als with the tools, advice, and insight they need to suc­ceed in today’s work­place. BNET isn’t for those who merely punch the clock each day from 9 to 5. Instead, it’s for peo­ple who are com­mit­ted to nur­tur­ing their own excel­lence, who believe in the mean­ing of work, and who know that a ful­fill­ing career is an excel­lent way to make per­sonal ambi­tions come true.

Thanks to all my read­ers and please look for­ward to the next 50 Ang Pere­grino Rec­om­mends sites!