The Best of The Web Gets Better
We clicked. We culled. And we found the sites that are really worth visiting
TRIED AND TRUE: Mayo Clinic Health Oasis (www.mayohealth.org) from the redoubtable Mayo Clinic is as basic as health sites get, with no-nonsense information and a minimum of distracting onscreen glitz. Great feature: "Ask the Mayo physician" and "Ask the Mayo dietitian." Questions from users are posted ("Is sitting close to the TV bad for my son's eyes?") and responses from Mayo experts ("No"). A running Q&A list is kept on the site, so you have a good shot at satisfying your curiosity without sending in a new query.
WORTH A CLICK: Quackwatch (www.quackwatch.com) is an antidote to health claims that need to be tested carefully, not swallowed unskeptically. Unconventional cancer cures and faith healing are among the subjects that are examined critically--and fairly.
Insurance
INSURE.COM
(www.insure.com)
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: The noble distinction of insure.com is that it doesn't directly sell insurance. Run by a former business editor of the Baltimore Sun, the invitingly designed site provides well-written, authoritative advice on buying life, auto, home, and other insurance and dealing with insurers. Forums let you ask questions of the site's staff, and timely articles cover such topics as financially weak HMOs or spotting flood damage in a used car. Buyers can search for firms offering specific coverage in their state and check a company's strength. You can link to insurance companies, quote services, and agents--but the selling is done off the insure.com site.
TRIED AND TRUE: The best-known, most-advertised site for insurance shopping is Quotesmith.com (www .quotesmith.com), which began supplying quotes online to agents in 1984 and later began giving them to the public. It doesn't have the depth of guidance at insure.com, and its mission is to close deals. But it excels at comparing prices and terms from many firms. Checklists help determine if health factors bar you from a specific life policy.
WORTH A CLICK: QuickenInsurance (www.insuremarket.com) asks about such things as your blood pressure, cholesterol, sports activity, and driving record. There's even a query about travel to underdeveloped nations. The result can be an accurately customized life quotation. Term4Sale.com asks only a few questions before pulling up term-life prices from a database used by agents.
Jobs
CAREERBUILDER
(www.careerbuilder.com)
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: What job searchers really want is a site that lets them search every opening in the world with absolute privacy. Careerbuilder isn't perfect, but it is the closest thing yet to that job-hopper's holy grail. It gathers postings from more than 30 major job sites and lets you search by categories, including the all-important pay range. While many career coaches now warn against posting electronic résumés, Careerbuilder is probably one of the safest Web sites in which to enter personal information. It has one of the strictest privacy policies on the Web; it says it never sells any personal information of its users.
TRIED AND TRUE: Monster.com is the most popular Web site for good reasons: It's got a fun name, is easy to use, doesn't require registration, and has lots of job openings (248,175 at last count). If you want even more, though, check out the federal government's unsexy but useful Jobsearch.org, which lists a monstrous 1.3 million openings. Quantity, however, may drown out quality. That's why many recruiters and job seekers are migrating to niche sites. The techies are going first, naturally. Sites like Dice.com, Techies.com, and Techjobbank.com are booming. And for the dreamers, there's always Coolworks.com, which lists adventure jobs such as park ranger, and the self-explanatory Sixfigurejobs.com.
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