Two Websites you probably don't know about

I have to give a special shout out to my friend Mandy, who told me about these two very cool Websites yesterday. Much thanks, karayoke queen!

Anyway, on to the sites, and when you have 20 minutes, you've just got to check these two out - I guarantee you'll be back.

The first site, tabblo, will virtually revolutionize the way you share your pictures with friends and family. There really isn't a whole lot you can't do with your pictures on this site. You can lay your photos out; reshape them; "present" a group of photos in any way you like with various backgrounds, captions, borders, etc.; and what's more, when you are finished laying out your photos and are ready to share, you can even have prints made of the layout you come up with. And the prices for that are very competitive and reasonable.

Tabblo does so much more for you once you start playing around and experimenting with the site - I only know the above stuff thanks to a quick tutorial from Mandy. However, at first glace, it almost looks like free Adobe programs on the Web - a mix of the old PageMaker, along with elements of InDesign, and to a lesser extent, Photoshop.

I'm impressed, to say the least, and I can't wait to get started on tabblo. My prediction - this site will become one of the next big things on the Web. It doesn't matter to me if it doesn't, but I love it and will be a heavy user down the road, especially with our wedding and honeymoon pictures that we will have to share after we get back from Mexico.

The next cool site is called Rollyo. A funny name, a cool logo, but best of all, a very cool and user friendly search engine.

A quick explanation of Rollyo is this - you can customize your Web searches. For example, say you do lots of searches on global warming, and you always check 20 particular sites. You can save those 20 sites, and the next time you do a global warming search, start with those 20 and move on. I'm probably not doing the site justice, but if you do a great deal of searching on the Web, this site is definitely worth checking out and it could save you a lot of time.

For my money, Google will always be the best overall search engine out there (and hundreds of millions agree), but sometimes you get the phone book when you are looking for something. So, if you frequently do the same search for school or work, then Rollyo will save you lots of time.

These two sites must be visited and explored to be appreciated; my words do not do them justice. Enjoy - I know I will, especially Tabblo.